Zoltan Kovecses-Where Metaphors Come From_ Reconsidering Context in Metaphor-Oxford University Press (2015)

Where Metaphors Come From

Where Metaphors Come Come From RECONSIDERING CONTEXT C ONTEXT IN MET METAPHOR APHOR

Zoltán Kövecses

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1 Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford. It furthers the University’s objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education by publishing worldwide. Oxford New York Auckland Cape Town Dar es Salaam Hong Kong Karachi Kuala Lumpur Madrid Melbourne Mexico City Nairobi New Delhi Shanghai Taipei Toronto With offices in Argentina Austria Brazil Chile Czech Republic France Greece Guatemala Hungary Italy Japan Poland Portugal Singapore South Korea Switzerland Thailand Turkey Ukraine Vietnam Oxford is a registered trade mark of Oxford University Press in the UK and certain other countries. Published in the United States of America by Oxford University Press 198 Madison Avenue, New York, NY 10016

© Oxford University Press 2015 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of Oxford University Press, or as expressly permitted by law, by license, or under terms agreed with the appropriate reproduction rights organization. Inquiries concerning reproduction outside the scope of the above should be sent to the Rights Department, Oxford University Press, at the address above. You must not circulate this work in any other form and you must impose this same condition on any acquirer. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Kövecses, Zoltán, author. Where metaphors come from : reconsidering context in metaphor / Zoltán Kövecses. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978–0–19–022486–8 — ISBN 978–0–19–022487–5 — ISBN 978–0–19–022488–2 1. Metaphor. 2. Language and languages—Variation. 3. Language and languages— Discourse analysis. 4. Cognitive grammar. I. Title. PE1445.M4K68 2014 808’.032—dc23 2014025386

9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper

To the memory of my parents

CONTENTS Preface

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Acknowledgments

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1. Metaphor, Embodiment, and Context 2. Meaning Making

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3. The Conceptual System 4. Contextual Factors

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5. Metaphor and Culture

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6. Context and Metaphorical Creativity 7. Context and Poetic Metaphor

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8. The Conceptual Context of Linguistic Humor 9. Happiness in Context 10. Metaphor and Context References Index

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PREFACE The work on metaphor that started with Lakoff and Johnson’s (1980) groundbreaking Metaphors We Live By showed in a very clear and powerful way that metaphors are part and parcel of everyday language and thought. Both everyday language and the conceptual system we use for everyday purposes make use of linguistic metaphors and the corresponding conceptual metaphors that underlie them. Lakoff and Johnson’s early work and also its later developments indicate that the human conceptual system is heavily metaphorical in nature and that we use metaphors spontaneously and with ease in the course of everyday communication. What makes this possible, on this view, is that conceptual metaphors consist of sets of systematic correspondences, or mappings, between two domains of experience and that the meaning of a particular metaphorical expression realizing an underlying conceptual metaphor is based on such correspondences. Since the conceptual metaphors and their mappings are readily available, the meanings that are based on the mappings can be readily used by speakers/conceptualizers in the course of everyday communication whenever there is a need for those meanings to be utilized. This view makes it appear as though communication by means of metaphors was only a matter of our knowledge of conceptual metaphors and their mappings stored in the mind. It would seem that communication and conceptualization by means of metaphors results from a preexisting set of conceptual metaphors giving rise to a preexisting set of metaphorical meanings that are readily available for use. However, such a view would be just a version of the folk theory of communication characterized by the CONDUIT metaphor, as described and rightly criticized by Michael Reddy (1979), who pointed out that communication works very differently than just sending prepackaged and preexisting meaning-objects in linguistic containers to other mind-containers. Scholars in a variety of disciplines have proposed much more sophisticated theories of how human communication and meaning making operates. Cognitive linguists in particular assume a(n almost consensus) model of meaning making that can be described as follows. People acquire knowledge and build concepts about the world based on their bodily experiences. The mental representations that arise from such bodily experiences are embedded in our social activities in the course of which our representations make it possible for us to share (aspects of) the world with others. What happens in the course of sharing the world with others (by means of our representations of it) can be characterized as “someone directing someone

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else’s attention to something.” This “sphere of shared attention” (Sinha, 2007) directs the communicative partner’s attention to another scene: the “referential scene.” The two constitute an intersubjective situation, which is called the “world of discourse,” in which the speaker/conceptualizer 1 directs addressee/ conceptualizer 2’s attention to a referential scene by means of the use of linguistic (or other) symbols. A crucial property of the linguistic symbols used in communication is that they impose a perspective on presenting the world. This property distinguishes linguistic signs from nonlinguistic signs. Linguistic symbols inherently construe the world in a particular way, that is, they present it from a given perspective. Therefore, their selection in the communication process always goes beyond the narrow referential relation between linguistic signs and aspects of the world. The choice of perspective depends, essentially, on two reference points, or centers of orientation, in communicative situations: the “referential center” and the “subject of consciousness.” We can view a situation from the perspective of the referential center that yields the spatial, temporal, and social relations for our construal of a referential scene. The other reference point is the “subject of consciousness,” that is, the active agent of consciousness who perceives, desires, thinks, and speaks. Similar to the referential center, this reference point, in the default case, is the person who produces the utterance. The meaning of linguistic symbols emerges only in an intersubjective context, that is, in a sphere of shared attention. The production and comprehension of utterances, that is, the construction of meaning, is always influenced by and emerges in a larger context as well. The larger context involves, in addition to the speaker and addressee, the circumstances under which the utterance is made (including who communicates, with whom, when, where), the circumstances of the action of which the utterance is a part (the intentions and other mental states that provide the motivation for making the utterance, i.e., that respond to the question of why communication takes place), as well as the background knowledge attaching to the topic of communication (i.e., answering the question of “about what”). These are represented in our conceptual system in the form of a variety of mental structures. (For a detailed discussion, see, e.g., Verschueren, 1999.) Not all information that is present in a communicative situation plays a role in the production and comprehension of particular utterances, that is, in meaning construction (see, e.g., Van Dijk, 2009). It is the participants of the communication process who must decide which factors are relevant or not in meaning construction. This means that context is never predetermined and ob jectively existing; it must be created (and recreated) in the course of the communicative process. This view of the nature of context implies that meaning construction is heavily context dependent and that even the formally same utterance may have very different meanings in different contexts. In other words, meaning construction is a dynamic and creative process that results from the

Preface

interaction of (more or less) conventional meanings of (linguistic) symbols based on embodied experience, on the one hand, and the contextual factors deemed to be relevant, on the other. Despite the heavy emphasis on the importance of context in meaning making in pragmatics and many branches of the humanities and social science (see, e.g., Duranti and Goodwin, 1992; Verschueren, 1999; Mey, 2001; van Dijk, 2008, 2009, 2014), the by now dominant view of metaphor—conceptual metaphor theory—still suffers, in general, from a lack of integrating context into its model of metaphorical meaning making. This situation has given rise to a great deal of criticism of conceptual metaphor theory from a variety of different authors and disciplines over the years (see, e.g., Leezenberg, 2001; Cameron, 2007a, Cameron and Low, eds., 1999, Brandt and Brandt, 2005; Steen, 2011; Deignan, 2010; for a general survey, see Gibbs, ed. 2008). But it has been clear all along that context is crucial to the production and comprehension of metaphors in the real world (see, e.g., Goatly, 1997, 2007; Musolff, 2004; Charteris-Black, 2004; Kövecses, 2005; Pragglejaz Group, 2007; Semino, 2008; Musolff and Zinken, 2009; MacArthur et al., 2012; Schmid, 2012). There were attempts, though, on the part of a number of researchers sympathetic to conceptual metaphor theory to show that a theory of context is essential to an account of metaphor emergence and metaphorical meaning construction (see, especially, work by Gibbs and his colleagues, e.g., Gibbs, 1987, 1994, 2012; Gibbs and Gerrig, 1989; Ritchie, 2004, 2006). Furthermore, several scholars have proposed theories of metaphor that are compatible with the view of conceptual metaphors and that do take the role of context into account in a dynamical systems theory framework (see, e.g., Gibbs and Cameron, 2007; Gibbs, 2011, 2012). And scholars less favorable to conceptual metaphor theory have also suggested frameworks within which to account for the phenomenon of metaphorical meaning making in context—of these probably the most influential being Sperber and Wilson’s (1986/1995) relevance theory. In the present work, I will discuss and rely on some of this previous research on context. And, just as important, I will try to respond to much of the criticism leveled at conceptual metaphor theory. In the final chapter of the book, I will make an attempt to integrate several of the ideas proposed by others into the new framework I develop in the chapters ahead and also show how we can expand conceptual metaphor theory in specific ways to accommodate most of the criticism. My main suggestion will be that it is not possible to account for the emergence and use of metaphor without taking seriously the close dependence of the metaphorical mind on the surrounding physical, social, and mental environment. Clearly, and unsurprisingly, the surrounding environment consists of the situational context and the linguistic context, or cotext. But less obviously, and more importantly, I claim that it also involves the body as context. In other words, I consider the embodiment of metaphor as a contextual feature, which is a reinterpretation of the bodily basis of metaphor. Finally, and

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perhaps most radically, I suggest that the conceptual system simultaneously produces metaphors and parts of it function as context for this production. I call this part of the conceptual system “conceptual-cognitive context.” The heavy dependence of the metaphorical conceptual system on the situational, discourse, bodily, and conceptual-cognitive contexts fits a theory of mind in which cognition is not only embodied but also grounded in multiple ways.

Structure of the Book

The book consists of thematic units. The first thematic unit includes Chapters 1, 2, and 3, and it functions as an introduction to some basic issues in the figurative mind, including the discussion of construal operations that are used to create abstract concepts and the resulting conceptual system. The second thematic unit, Chapters 4, 5, 6, and 7, examines through a large number of examples in real discourse the intimate relationship between metaphor production (and comprehension) and context. I discuss here the most common contextual factors that lead to metaphors in discourse and the issue of metaphorical creativity in both everyday and poetic language. The third thematic unit, Chapters 8 and 9, deals with two more detailed case studies: a specific mental action, or process (humor) and a specific concept (happiness) that both rely heavily on metaphorical conceptualization. The study of both the process and the concept allows us to see further complexities in the nature of context and its impact on metaphorical conceptualization. The fourth thematic unit, Chapter 10, brings together the various threads in the interaction of metaphorical conceptualization and contextual factors. I make an attempt to offer a coherent account of the relationship between metaphor and context that is consistent with some recent views on grounded cognition.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Several people have read and commented on various parts and versions of the manuscript for this book. Among the colleagues, I am especially indebted to Ray Gibbs, Ning Yu, and Teun Van Dijk for generously offering me their ideas. Without their constructive criticism, I would probably feel less confident about my reconceptualization of the notion of context. As with previous books, my students have also been instrumental in shaping my views on the issues discussed here. In Budapest, Orsolya Putz, Orsolya Farkas, Erzsébet Tóth-Czifra, Judit Peth ő-Szirmai, Mohsen Bakhtiyar, and Kou Danyang have helped me stay more focused on the main issues that were raised in the various chapters. In Heidelberg, Stefanie Vogelbacher and Olga Boryslavska have made especially valuable suggestions regarding both content and form of presentation. I also thank participants of my winter 2013 Metaphor and Culture class for their many useful comments. My special thanks go to the English Department in Heidelberg, and especially Sonja Kleinke, for creating a friendly atmosphere while working on the final version of this book. I also want to thank Peter Ohlin and Hallie Stebbins of Oxford University Press for their superb job as editors. I am particularly grateful to Peter for his continued interest in my work and the encouragement he provided me for more than a decade now. Finally, I offer this book to the memory of my parents. Zoltán Kövecses Budapest and Heidelberg May, 2014

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Metaphor, Embodiment, and Context

Conceptual metaphor theory can be considered a view of metaphor in which metaphorical meaning construction is simply a matter of how our metaphors arise from correlations in experience (for correlation metaphors) or from similarities between experiential domains (for resemblance metaphors) (see Chapter 2). In both, metaphorical meaning can be taken to derive from a set of systematic correspondences, or mappings, between these two aspects of experience. Evidence from both previous and more recent work, however, indicates that this view is simplistic and inadequate, and that a more refined perspective is needed. The aspect of metaphorical meaning construction that needs to be addressed centers on the issue of context and how it plays a role in the comprehension and creation (production) of metaphors. I show in this chapter that metaphorical meaning in language use (or other types of communication) does not simply arise from conceptual metaphors, the mappings that constitute them, and the metaphorical entailments that they may imply. I show that metaphorical meaning construction, in addition, is heavily dependent on context and involves two closely related, if not identical, issues concerning context, taken from different perspectives: one from that of the person who tries to comprehend a metaphor in context (conceptualizer 2) and another from that of the person who produces or creates a metaphor in context (conceptualizer 1). It is my goal here to begin the discussion of the notion of context in relation to metaphor, though I will be able to offer only a very rudimentary idea of it at this stage—after all, the characterization of the role of context in metaphorical meaning construction is the main and ultimate goal of the book. The definition of context that I find most useful for my purposes at this early stage of the discussion comes from Van Dijk (2009: 5): “. . . a context is what is defined to be relevant in the social situation by the participants themselves.” In the last chapter, I offer a more detailed and complete description of context in relation to metaphor.

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The contextual factors that are most commonly distinguished in the literature fall into two large groups: linguistic and nonlinguistic. The linguistic factors are often referred to as “cotext,” and it seems to be the clearer type. It is the discourse that surrounds (mostly precedes) the use of a particular metaphorical expression. The term that is used to denote the nonlinguistic factors is simply “context.” However, the term context is often used for both types of factors, linguistic and nonlinguistic, that influence the production and comprehension of metaphors. I use the term context in this more general sense.

Conceptual Metaphor Theory at a Glance

In conceptual metaphor theory, metaphor is thought of very broadly as conceptualizing one domain of experience in terms of another. The domain of experience that is used to comprehend another domain is typically more physical, more directly experienced, and better known than the domain we wish to comprehend, which is typically more abstract, less directly experienced, and less known. In the cognitive linguistic view of metaphor, originated by George Lakoff and Mark Johnson’s (1980) Metaphors We Live By, the more concrete, or physical, domain is called the source domain and the more abstract one is called the target domain. (For a more recent and comprehensive survey of conceptual metaphor theory, see Kövecses, 2010a.) Domains of experience are represented in the mind as concepts given as mental frames, or cognitive models. Hence we talk about conceptual metaphors. The source frame and the target frame are connected by a set of conceptual correspondences, or mappings. Thus, on this view, metaphor is a set of correspondences, or mappings, between the elements of two mental frames. For example, a set of correspondences between a traveler and a person leading a life—the way the traveler is traveling and the manner in which the person lives, the destination the traveler wants to reach and the life goals of the person, and the physical obstacles along the way and the difficulties the person has in life—all comprise a set of mappings that make up the conceptual metaphor LIFE IS A JOURNEY. A conceptual metaphor typically has a number of linguistic manifestations (metaphorically used words and more complex expressions) to talk about the target domain. In the example, the sentences “I hit a roadblock ,” “She wanders aimlessly in life,” “This is not the right way to live,” and so on make manifest, or simply express, correspondences between the elements of obstacle and difficulty, destination and purpose, and path and manner, respectively. Taken together, they indicate that the highly abstract concept of LIFE is partially understood in terms of the more concrete concept of JOURNEY. The meanings of the particular metaphorical expressions are based on the conceptual correspondences, or mappings.


CLASSIFYING METAPHORS

There are several ways in which metaphors can be classified. They can be grouped according to their cognitive function, nature, conventionality, generality, grounding, and others. With respect to cognitive function, conceptual metaphors can be structural (such as LIFE IS A JOURNEY) or nonstructural (as when, e.g., we evaluate a concept by assigning a positive or negative value to it— GOOD IS UP, BAD IS DOWN) according to Lakoff and Johnson (1980)—a view that the authors modified (Lakoff and Johnson 2003), suggesting that all conceptual metaphors map structure onto the target concept. (However, we can probably maintain that there is a degree to which various metaphors primarily map structure or, e.g., some kind of evaluation.) With respect to their nature, conceptual metaphors can be based on our general knowledge (in the form of propositions) in connection with an area of experience and the images we have of various domains of the world (cf. THE MIND IS A COMPUTER vs. THE MIND IS A CONTAINER) (see Lakoff, 1993; Kövecses, 2010a). With respect to conventionality, conceptual metaphors can be conventional and unconventional or novel (as in LIFE IS A JOURNEY vs. LIFE IS A BOX OF CHOCOLATES) (see Lakoff and Turner 1989). With respect to generality, conceptual metaphors can be generic and specific (as in EMOTIONS ARE FORCES vs. ANGER IS A HOT FLUID IN A CONTAINER vs. THE ANGRY PERSON IS A KETTLE) ( see Lakoff, 1993). With respect to grounding, or the basis of metaphor, conceptual metaphors may be grounded in analogical relationships between two domains and on bodily correlations in experience between the domains (as in LIFE IS A THEATER PLAY vs. ANGER IS HEAT) (see Lakoff, 1993; Grady, 1999). The kinds of metaphors these distinctions yield may combine in particular cases of conceptual metaphors, and the distinctions occur in various degrees between the two extremes of such scales.

Metaphor and Universal Embodiment

Native speakers of all languages use a large number of metaphors when they communicate about the world (Lakoff and Johnson, 1980). Such metaphorically used words and expressions may vary considerably across different languages. For example, the idea that English expresses with the words spending your time is expressed in Hungarian as filling your time. The “images” different languages and cultures employ can be extremely diverse, and hence it is natural to ask: Are there any universal metaphors at all, if by “universal” we mean those linguistic metaphors that occur in each and every language? This question is difficult not only because it goes against our everyday experiences and intuitions regarding metaphorical language in diverse languages and cultures, but also because it is extremely difficult to study, given that there are 4–6000 languages spoken around the world today.

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However, if we go beyond looking at metaphorically used linguistic expressions in different languages, and, instead of linguistic metaphors, we consider conceptual metaphors, we begin to notice that many conceptual metaphors appear in a wide range of languages (see Kövecses, 2005). For example, Hoyt Alverson (1994) found that the TIME IS SPACE conceptual metaphor can be found in such diverse languages and cultures as English, Mandarin Chinese, Hindi, and Sesotho. Many other researchers suggested that the same conceptual metaphor is present in a large number of additional languages. Several other conceptual metaphors appear in a large number of different languages. Kövecses (2000) points out that, based on evidence from a number of linguists who are native speakers of the respective languages, English, Japanese, Chinese, Hungarian, Wolof, Zulu, Polish, and others possess the metaphor AN ANGRY PERSON IS A PRESSURIZED CONTAINER to various degrees. Ning Yu’s (1995, 1998) work indicates that the metaphor HAPPINESS IS UP is also present not only in English but also in Chinese. The system of metaphors called the Event Structure metaphor (Lakoff, 1993) includes submetaphors such as CAUSES ARE FORCES, STATES ARE CONTAINERS, PURPOSES ARE DESTINATIONS, ACTION IS MOTION, DIFFICULTIES ARE

), and so forth. Remarkably, in addition to English, this set of submetaphors occurs in such widely different languages and cultures as Chinese (Yu, 1998) and Hungarian (Kövecses, 2005). Eve Sweetser (1990) noticed that the KNOWING IS SEEING and the more general the MIND IS THE BODY metaphors can be found in many European languages and are probably good candidates for (near-)universal metaphors. As a final example, Lakoff and Johnson (1999) describe the metaphors used for one’s inner life in English and Japanese. Metaphors such as SELF-CONTROL IS OBJECT POSSESSION, SUBJECT AND SELF ARE ADVERSARIES, and THE SELF IS A CHILD are shared by English, Japanese, and Hungarian (see Chapter 4). Given that one’s inner life is a highly elusive phenomenon, and hence would seem to be heavily culture and language dependent, one would expect a great deal of significant cultural variation in such a metaphor. (For more discussion of these self-related metaphors, see Chapter 4.) All in all, then, we have a number of cases that constitute universal or at least near-universal or potentially universal conceptual metaphors. How is it possible that such conceptual metaphors exist in such diverse languages and cultures? After all, the languages belong to very different language families and represent very different cultures of the world. Several answers to this question lend themselves for consideration. First, we can suggest that by coincidence all of these languages developed the same conceptual metaphors for happiness, time, purpose, and so forth. Second, we can consider the possibility that languages borrowed the metaphors from each other. Third, we can argue that there may be some universal basis for the same metaphors to develop in the diverse languages. Let us take as an example the HAPPINESS IS UP conceptual metaphor, first discussed by Lakoff and Johnson (1980) as it is used in English. The conceptual IMPEDIMENTS (TO MOTION


metaphor can be seen in such linguistic expressions as feeling up, being on cloud nine, being high, and others. Yu (1995, 1998) noticed that the conceptual metaphor can also be found in Chinese. Evidence shows that it also exists in Hungarian (for a discussion, see Kövecses, 2005). English, Mandarin Chinese, and Hungarian (a Finno-Ugric language) belong to different language families, which developed independently for much of their history. It is also unlikely that the three languages had any significant impact on each other in their recent history. This is not to say that such an impact never shapes particular languages apropos of their metaphors (e.g., the processes of globalization and the widespread use of the Internet may “popularize” certain conceptual metaphors, such as TIME IS A COMMODITY), but only to suggest that the reason the particular HAPPINESS IS UP metaphor exists in the three languages is likely not that, say, Hungarian borrowed it from Chinese and English from Hungarian. How then did the same conceptual metaphor emerge in these diverse languages? The best answer seems to be that there is some “universal bodily experience” that led to its emergence. Lakoff and Johnson argued early that English has the metaphor because when we are happy, we tend to be physically up, active, moving around, jumping up and down, smiling (i.e., turning up the corners of the mouth), rather than down, inactive and static, and so forth. These are undoubtedly universal experiences associated with happiness (or more precisely, joy), and they are likely to produce potentially universal (or nearuniversal) conceptual metaphors. The emergence of a potentially universal conceptual metaphor does not, of course, mean that the linguistic expressions themselves will be the same in different languages that possess a particular conceptual metaphor (see, e.g., Barcelona, 2000; Maalej, 2004). Kövecses (1990, 2000) proposed, furthermore, that the (potentially) universal bodily experiences can be captured in the conceptual metonymies associated with particular concepts. Specifically, in the case of emotion concepts, such as happiness, anger, love, pride, and so forth, the metonymies correspond to various kinds of physiological, behavioral, and expressive reactions. These reactions provide us with a profile of the bodily basis of emotion concepts. Thus, the metonymies give us a sense of the embodied nature of concepts, and the “embodiment” of concepts may be overlapping, that is, (near-)universal, across different languages and language families. Such universal embodiment may lead to the emergence of shared conceptual metaphors. Grady (1997a, b) developed the Lakoff–Johnson view further by proposing that we need to distinguish “complex metaphors” from “primary metaphors.” His idea was that complex metaphors (e.g., THEORIES ARE BUILDINGS) are composed of primary metaphors (e.g., LOGICAL ORGANIZATION IS PHYSICAL STRUCTURE). The primary metaphors consist of correlations of a subjective experience with a physical experience. As a matter of fact, it became evident that many of the conceptual metaphors discussed in the cognitive linguistic literature are primary metaphors in this sense. For instance, HAPPY IS UP is best

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viewed as a primary metaphor, where being happy is a subjective experience and being physically up is a physical one that is repeatedly associated with it. Other primary metaphors include MORE IS UP, PURPOSES ARE DESTINATIONS, and INTIMACY IS CLOSENESS. It is the primary metaphors that are potentially universal. In addition, according to Grady, primary metaphors function at a fairly local and specific level of conceptualization, and hence in the brain. At the same time, we can also assume the existence of much more generic metaphors. For example, in many languages and cultures of the world animals are commonly viewed as humans and humans as animals; humans are commonly conceptualized as objects and objects as humans, and so on. A wellknown example of the objects-as-humans metaphor was described by Basso (1967), who showed that in the language of the Western Apache cars are metaphorically viewed in terms of the human body. Furthermore, Heine and his colleagues’ work (Heine, Claudi, and Hünnemeyer, 1991; Heine, 1995; Heine and Kuteva, 2002) reveals other large-scale metaphorical processes people seem to employ (near-)universally; for example, spatial relations are commonly understood as parts of the human body (e.g., the head means up and the feet means down). These generic conceptual metaphors, in addition to the primary ones discussed previously, also seem to be global design features of the human brain/mind. It seems clear at this point that commonality in human experience is a major force shaping the metaphors we have. It is this force that gives us many of the conceptual metaphors that we can take to be near-universal or potentially universal. But commonality in human experience is not the only force that plays a role in the process of establishing and using metaphors. There are also countervailing forces that work against universality in metaphor production.

Metaphor and Context

As we saw earlier, in cognitive linguistics metaphor is defined as a set of mappings between two domains. Given such a definition, comprehending a particular metaphorical expression simply involves identifying and relying on a particular mapping of a conceptual metaphor that the expression exemplifies. This view appears to exclude any possibility for context to play a role in the use of metaphor. CONTEXT AND METAPHOR COMPREHENSION

However, there is a fair amount of consensus in the study of how metaphors are interpreted that the comprehension of particular metaphorical expressions requires familiarity with the context in which the metaphor is used (see, e.g., Gibbs, 1987). In other words, much of the experimental work on metaphor


comprehension indicates that metaphor interpretation can take place only in context; that is, metaphor interpretation varies with context and, thus, metaphor and context are closely linked. Consequently, it can be argued that conceptual metaphor theory is problematic, in that metaphorical meaning does not arise simply from conceptual metaphors, mappings, or metaphorical entailments, or inferences. To demonstrate the effect of context, consider a recent example of how context can modify the meaning of a metaphorical expression, taken from Ritchie’s (2004: 278) work: (1) “You seem much happier than the last time I saw you. You used to be discontented and easily distracted, but now you seem to be contented and at peace with yourself.” “My wife is an anchor.” Given his “connectivist” theory of metaphor, Ritchie (2004: 278) explains the interpretation process in the following way: In the context of conversation (1), working memory includes a contrast between a previous state of discontentment and distraction, and a current state of contentment and peace. Ideas and emotions associated with security, relaxed vigilance, and safety will connect with the ideas and emotions associated with contentment and lack of worries in the speaker’s current life, already activated in the common ground, so will be strengthened and connected to the concept of wife, thereby creating or strengthening connections between wife and feelings of contentment and lack of worries. In another context, however, the meaning of the metaphor anchor changes. Ritchie (2004: 278) provides a different conversation in which it could be used: (2) “You sound like you’ve become bored with life. You used to be so eager for new experiences, but now the old zest for life seems to have become dulled.” “My wife is an anchor.” Ritchie (2004: 278-279) offers the following explanation for the interpretation of the second use of the metaphor: In the context of conversation (2), working memory includes a contrast between a previous zest for life and a current state of boredom, so the pattern of connections will be just the opposite as in the first conversation. In both cases, the ideas and emotions activated during this interpretive process will be connected to the similar ideas and emotions previously activated in the participants’ working memories, and will remain as part of each participant’s working memory, where it may influence processing of subsequent information (Allbritton, McKoon, & Gerrig 1995).

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Where Metaphors Come From Anchor is an

example of what Ritchie calls an “ambiguous metaphor.” The interpretation of such metaphors changes with shifts in the context in which they are used. The differences in interpretation result from processing the metaphor “in the context of the currently activated information.” He summarizes the interpretative process in the following way: When the speaker mentions “my wife,” the activation level of features associated with the concept of wife is increased, along with the activation level of any other information about the speaker’s relationship to his wife that may have been introduced into the conversation. When the speaker mentions “anchor,” diverse elements (facts, ideas, images, and emotions) associated with “anchor” are momentarily activated; those that afford no ready connection with the contents of working memory are suppressed, and those that resonate with the contents of working memory are reinforced. Qualities such as shape, color, weight, and metallic composition of an anchor connect with nothing in either conversation, and will be quickly suppressed (Ritchie, 2004: 279). In light of his view of metaphor interpretation, Ritchie describes the relationship between his account of metaphor (called connectivity theory) and conceptual metaphor theory, as first proposed by Lakoff and Johnson, as follows (Ritchie, 2004: 281): Ambiguous Metaphors. The ideas developed in the foregoing are similar to Lakoff and Johnson’s (1980, 1999) claim that the topic is actually experienced

in terms of the vehicle, but the connectivity account places more emphasis on the contextual relativity of the metaphor, and does not assume that a conceptual metaphor precedes the linguistic expression. Moreover, because the connectivity model starts with the act of interpreting a particular message, it does not share the assumption of conceptual metaphor theory that thematically similar expressions are necessarily expressions of a common underlying conceptual metaphor. Nor does the connectivity model lead to the hypothesis that a speaker or writer will be more likely to draw different expressions for a single topic from a common conceptual metaphor, as does conceptual metaphor theory (Shen & Balaban, 1999; Keysar & Bly, 1999). Ritchie makes three claims here: (1) Unlike conceptual metaphor theory, connectivity theory “does not assume that a conceptual metaphor precedes the linguistic expression” [associated with a conceptual metaphor] (Ritchie, 2004: 281). (2) Unlike conceptual metaphor theory, connectivity theory does not claim “that thematically similar expressions are necessarily expressions of a common underlying conceptual metaphor” (Ritchie, 2004: 281). (3) Unlike conceptual metaphor theory, connectivity theory does not claim “that a speaker or writer will be more likely to draw different expressions for a single topic from a common conceptual metaphor” (Ritchie, 2004: 281).


As for claim (1), I would propose that in many cases in the course of using particular metaphorical expressions there are preceding conceptual metaphors in a person’s conceptual system that influence the use of linguistic metaphors. In the first conversational context, conceptualizer1/speaker1 comments on conceptualizer 2/speaker 2’s life and current emotional state. In responding to this, conceptualizer 2/speaker 2 relies on the idea of his relationship to his wife, as well as the stability and strength he receives from his wife. In other words, there are three concepts that figure importantly in his response: life, human relationships, and emotional stability/strength. There is at least one conventional conceptual metaphor associated with eac h of the three concepts that may influence the choice of a metaphor used by conceptualizer 2/speaker 2: LIFE IS A JOURNEY (head start, set out, make progress, have goals, lose one’s direction), HUMAN RELATIONSHIPS ARE PHYSICAL CONNECTIONS (bond , tie , attachment , break a connection, etc.), and EMOTIONAL STABILITY/STRENGTH IS PHYSICAL STABILITY/STRENGTH (anchor, support, mainstay, be dependable, rely on). Ideally, conceptualizer 2/speaker 2 will choose a metaphorical expression that fits all three and that expresses the specific content that he wants to express, namely, that his wife provides him with emotional stability/strength in his life. The word anchor fits the LIFE IS A JOURNEY metaphor because an anchor is an element involved in sea journeys. It fits the HUMAN RELATIONSHIPS ARE PHYSICAL CONNECTIONS metaphor because an anchor is physically connected to a ship. And it fits the EMOTIONAL STABILITY /STRENGTH IS PHYSICAL STABILITY/STRENGTH metaphor because an anchor does not allow a ship to move away from a safe location. In addition, as regards the intended meaning, the anchor metaphor says what conceptualizer 2/speaker 2 intends to say in his response: “in times of danger in the course of my life, my wife provides me with the stability I need.” Without the prior existence of these conventional conceptual metaphors in the mind of the conceptualizer/speaker, it would be difficult to understand why he chose this particular metaphorical expression. The second conversation is about the difficulties that conceptualizer 2/ speaker 2 experiences in his relationship with his wife in terms of his life goals. In this context, we still have the LIFE IS A JOURNEY and the HUMAN RELATIONSHIPS ARE PHYSICAL CONNECTIONS metaphors, since the concept of life and that of relationship are the topic of the conversation: conceptualizer 2/speaker 2’s difficulties in life and his relationship to his wife are discussed. But here the EMOTIONAL STABILITY/STRENGTH IS PHYSICAL STABILITY/STRENGTH metaphor is replaced by another metaphor: LACK OF FREEDOM TO ACT IS LACK OF FREEDOM TO MOVE. The replacement happens because conceptualizer 2/speaker 2 blames his wife for his not being able to achieve certain life goals. The LACK OF FREEDOM TO ACT IS LACK OF FREEDOM TO MOVE metaphor is, in fact, one of the mappings of the LIFE IS A JOURNEY metaphor and it is this mapping, or correspondence, that gets highlighted in the new context.

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In sum, then, in both conversations we have three conventional conceptual metaphors. Two of them are shared in the two contexts, whereas the third is different. The two different metaphors, EMOTIONAL STABILITY/STRENGTH IS PHYSICAL STABILITY/STRENGTH and LACK OF FREEDOM TO ACT IS LACK OF FREEDOM TO MOVE, are the main carriers of the intended meaning (emotional stability vs. lack of freedom to act) in the two situations, but both are adjusted to the two other conceptual metaphors conventionally used to conceptualize the topics discussed in the conversations. As for claim (2) that, unlike conceptual metaphor theory, connectivity theory does not claim “that thematically similar expressions are necessarily expressions of a common underlying conceptual metaphor,” (Ritchie, 2004: 281), my view is that there is nothing in conceptual metaphor theory that would suggest such a position. It is generally accepted in cognitive linguistics that a particular concept may be involved in several different mental frames, or domains. The same goes for metaphorically used concepts. In the preceding example, the concept of anchor may be a part of the PHYSICAL STABILITY domain, as well as that of the FREEDOM TO MOVE domain. In line with Ritchie’s suggestion, the choice of the appropriate domain, and, hence, conceptual metaphor, depends on the topic of the conversation. As for claim (3) that, unlike conceptual metaphor theory, connectivity theory does not claim “that a speaker or writer will be more likely to draw different expressions for a single topic from a common conceptual metaphor,” (Ritchie, 2004: 281), I do not think that conceptual metaphor theory is committed to this. As I have proposed elsewhere (Kövecses, 2002/2010a), conceptual metaphors exist at what I call the “supraindividual” level, where particular concepts are connected metaphorically in the conceptual system in a decontextualized manner. It could perhaps be suggested that this is what we have in long-term memory. Actual discourses, however, are created at the “individual” level, where the metaphorically connected concepts are put to use in particular situational contexts, that is, where our metaphorical concepts are contextualized for particular purposes of meaning making. If, given a particular topic, a particular meaning needs to be articulated, we choose expressions that carry this meaning, regardless of whether it is an instance of the same or different conceptual metaphors. Metaphorical concepts are consistent in the conceptual system, but they do not have to be used in an “imagistically” consistent way in actual discourses. Actually, in addition to the role played by the conceptual metaphors, metonymy is also needed to make sense of the two conversations. This is because a metonymic relationship has to be assumed between stability and contentedness, on the one hand, and lack of freedom to act and discontentedness, on the other. It should be noticed that in the conversations the conceptualizer talks about contentedness, and not about emotional stability, and discontentedness, and not about lack of freedom to act, although the relevant metaphors


involve emotional stability, on the one hand, and lack of freedom to act, on the other. However, the link between the two pairs is metonymic: CONTENTEDNESS FOR EMOTIONAL STABILITY and DISCONTENTEDNESS FOR LACK OF FREEDOM TO ACT. Emotional stability typically leads to contentedness and lack of freedom to act typically leads to discontentedness. To understand the use of the anchor metaphor, we need to assume such a metonymic link. In conclusion, although I admit that metaphor comprehension can take place only in context, I would suggest that, in a large number of cases, such as the one discussed earlier, information about the context works together with preexisting conventional conceptual metaphors. Such conceptual metaphors may facilitate interpretation. And, indeed, they may be seen as further aspects of the context (see Chapter 10). However, in addition to facilitating interpretation, context may be important for another reason. It can guide conceptualizers in their choice of metaphors. This is an issue not in the interpretation but in the creation/production of metaphors. CONTEXT AND METAPHOR CREATION

Heine’s work mentioned previously also shows that not even such global metaphors as SPATIAL RELATIONS ARE PARTS OF THE BODY are universal in an absolute sense. There are languages in which spatial relations are conceptualized in terms of the animal rather than the human body. He points out that such languages function in societies where animal husbandry is a main form of subsistence. This leads us to the question: What causes our metaphors to vary as they do? It is convenient to set up two large groups of causes: differential experience and differential cognitive preferences. Differential experience involves differences in social-cultural context, in social and personal history, and in what we can term social and personal concern or interest (see Kövecses, 2005 and further discussion in Chapters 4 and 10). One example of how the social-cultural context can shape conceptual metaphors is provided by Geeraerts and Grondelaers (1995). They note that in the Euro-American tradition it is the classical-medieval notion of the “four humors” from which the Euro-American conceptualization of anger (as well as that of emotion in general) derived. The humoral view maintains that the four fluids (phlegm, black bile, yellow bile, and blood) and the temperatures associated with them regulate the vital processes of the human body. They were also believed to determine personality types (such as sanguine, melancholy, etc.) and account for a number of medical problems. The humoral view exerted a major impact on the emergence of the European conception of anger as a hot fluid in a pressurized container. By contrast, King (1989) and Yu (1995, 1998) suggest that the Chinese concept of nu (corresponding to anger) is bound up with the notion of qi , that is, the energy that flows through the body. Qi in turn

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is embedded in not only the psychological (i.e., emotional) but also in the philosophical and medical discourse of Chinese culture and civilization. When qi rises in the body, there is anger (nu). Without the concept of qi , it would be difficult to imagine the view of anger in Chinese culture. Thus emotion concepts, such as anger in English, düh in Hungarian (the two representing European culture), and nu in Chinese, are in part explained in the respective cultures by the culture-specific concepts of the four humors and qi , respectively. It appears that the culture-specific key concepts that operate in particular cultures account for many of the specific-level differences among the various anger-related concepts and the PRESSURIZED CONTAINER metaphor (see Kövecses, 2000). An example of how differences in human concern and interest can create new metaphors, consider some well known conceptual metaphors for sadness: SADNESS IS DOWN, SADNESS IS A BURDEN, and SADNESS IS DARK. The counterpart of sadness is depression in a clinical context. McMullen and Conway (2002) studied the metaphors that people with episodes of depression use and, with one exception, found the same conceptual metaphors for depression that “nondepressed” people use for sadness. They identified the unique metaphor as DEPRESSION IS A CAPTOR. Why don’t “merely” sad people talk about sadness as being a “captor”? Most people do not normally talk about being trapped by, wanting to be free of, or wanting to break out of sadness, although these are ways of thinking and talking about depression in a clinical context. It makes sense to suggest that people with depression use this language and way of thinking about their situation because it faithfully captures what they experience and feel. Their deep concern is with their unique experiences and feelings that set them apart from people who do not have them. It is this concern that gives them the CAPTOR metaphor for depression. People can employ a variety of different cognitive operations in their effort to make sense of experience. For example, what I call “experiential focus” can have an impact on the specific details of the conceptual metaphors used, and what is conceptualized metaphorically in one culture can predominantly be conceptualized by means of metonymy in another (Kövecses, 2005). The universal bodily basis on which universal metaphors could be built may not be utilized in the same way or to the same extent in different languages and cultures. What experiential focus means is that different peoples may be attuned to different aspects of their bodily functioning in relation to a metaphorical target domain, or that they can ignore or downplay certain aspects of their bodily functioning with respect to the metaphorical conceptualization of a target domain. A case in point is the conceptualization of anger in English and Chinese. As studies of the physiology of anger across several unrelated cultures show, increase in skin temperature and rise in blood pressure are universal physiological correlates of anger (Levenson et al., 1992). This accounts for the ANGER IS HEAT metaphor in English and in many other languages. However, King’s and Yu’s work mentioned earlier suggest that the conceptualization of anger in terms of heat


is much less prevalent in Chinese than it is in English. In Chinese, the major metaphors of anger seem to be based on pressure—not heat. This indicates that speakers of Chinese have relied on a different aspect of their physiology in the metaphorical conceptualization of anger than speakers of English. The major point is that in many cases the universality of experiential basis does not necessarily lead to universally equivalent conceptualization—at least not at the specific level of hot fluids. Are there any differences in the way the cognitive processes of metaphor versus metonymy are used in different languages and cultures? Charteris-Black (2003) examined in great detail how and for what purpose three concepts— mouth, tongue, and lip—are figuratively utilized in English and Malay. He found similarities in metaphorical conceptualization. For example, in both languages, the same underlying conceptual metaphor (e.g., MANNER IS TASTE) accounts for expressions like honey-tongued and lidah manis (“tongue sweet”) and in both languages such expressions are used for the discourse function of evaluating (especially negatively) what a person says. However, he also found that the figurative expressions involving the three concepts tended to be metonymic in English and metaphoric in Malay. In English, more than half of the expressions were metonyms, whereas in Malay the vast majority of them showed evidence of metaphor (often in combination with metonymy). For example, whereas metonymic expressions like tight-lipped abound in English, such expressions are much less frequent in Malay. It seems that, at least in the domain of speech organs, the employment of these concepts by means of figurative processes is partially culture specific. In sum, metaphorical linguistic expressions may vary widely crossculturally but many conceptual metaphors appear to be potentially universal or near-universal. This happens because people across the world share certain bodily experiences. However, even such potentially universal metaphors may display variation in their specific details because people do not use their cognitive capacities in the same way from culture to culture. Moreover, shared conceptual metaphors may vary cross-culturally in the frequency of their use. Finally, many conceptual metaphors are unique to particular (sub)cultures or sets of cultures because of differences in such factors as social-cultural context, history, or human concern that characterize these cultures.

Two Lines of Research in the Study of Metaphor

This discussion of the role of the body and context in the use of metaphor leads us to the issue of universality and variation in metaphorical conceptualization. The cognitive linguistic view of metaphor (Lakoff and Johnson, 1980; Kövecses, 2002/2010a, 2006) that uses primary metaphors as its fundamental construct assumes that primary metaphors are based on correlations in bodily

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experience and, hence, that these metaphors are embodied (Grady, 1997a, b; Lakoff and Johnson, 1999). Since embodiment such as the correlation between amount and verticality, purposes and destinations, similarity and closeness, anger and heat, and the like, characterizes all human beings, the corresponding primary metaphors will be, or at least can potentially be, universal. In this view, nonuniversal aspects of metaphor are accounted for by the various ways in which primary metaphors are put together in different cultures to form “complex metaphors.” The main focus of this kind of research is, however, on universal aspects of metaphor. By contrast, another line of research within the cognitive linguistic paradigm takes as its point of departure the huge amount of variation we can find in metaphor both cross-culturally and within cultures, and it places a great deal of emphasis on the attempt to account for such variation. As Kövecses (2005) observes, the major driving force behind variation is context. This is defined by a variety of contextual factors, such as differences in key concepts in a culture, in history, and environment. Thus, given conceptual metaphor theory, it appears that we can have two foci in our research interests, one concerned primarily with universality and another concerned primarily with variation. Taking into account the causes of universality and variation, we get two general lines of research: Embodiment—Universality Context—Variation In Metaphor in Culture (Kövecses, 2005), I suggested that we can reconcile the two programs by making the claim that when we comprehend something metaphorically in particular situations, we are under two kinds of pressure: the pressure of our embodiment and the pressure of context. Metaphorical conceptualizers try to be coherent with both their bodies (i.e., correlations in bodily experience) and their contexts (i.e., various contextual factors). Building on this original suggestion, I will argue somewhat differently in the present work. I will suggest that the influence of the body and context are not opposing “forces” in the creation of metaphors but, instead, serve as the sources or origins for the emergence of metaphors. I will come back to the notion of the “pressure of coherence” and the issue of its reinterpretation in later chapters.

Conclusions

Metaphorical meaning does not simply arise from conceptual metaphors, their mappings, and their potential entailments. An enriched view of conceptual metaphor theory must pay serious attention to the role of context in metaphorical meaning construction.


As I argued in this chapter, context plays an important function not only in the comprehension of metaphors but also in their production or creation. The example that we saw for the former was Ritchie’s anchor metaphor. In comprehending that metaphor one needs to know the mental states of the conceptualizer in different contexts. An example for the latter was the metaphorical conceptualization of anger in the English-speaking world, as opposed to Chinese. We saw that broad culture-specific key concepts play a role in creating different particular metaphorical conceptualizations for anger. Both examples indicate the importance of context and give us an early glimpse into the wide range of contextual factors that govern the way we use (comprehend and create) metaphors in actual communicative situations. The mental states of conceptualizers can be seen as one kind of contextual factor (the anchor example) and broad culturally significant concepts as another (the humoral view vs. the view based on qi ). Indeed, one can even think of the established conceptual metaphors in long-term memory (the conventional conceptual system) as part of context (e.g., the LIFE IS A JOURNEY metaphor). This can function as facilitating the activation of particular conceptual metaphors in the course of expressing certain metaphorical meanings. Moreover, even embodied experience may be seen as a temporally extremely distant and indirect influence on which metaphors we create in actual situations (e.g., the presence of body heat in anger). Both of these possibilities are taken up again in the final chapter.

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2

Meaning Making

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The most salient idea that distinguishes cognitive linguistics from other kinds of linguistics is the attempt to describe and explain language use with reference to a number of cognitive operations—commonly called “construal operations” in cognitive linguistics. Some of the cognitive, or construal, operations that cognitive linguists use in their accounts of language are well established in cognitive psychology and cognitive science, while others are more hypothetical in nature (see Gibbs, 2000). All of these cognitive operations serve human beings to make meaning—to make sense of their experience, including language. Cognitive, or construal, operations play an essentially dual role in our mental life. On the one hand, it is through such operations that we build or acquire a conventional conceptual system through which we conceptualize experience. The second role of construal operations is that, given that conceptual system, the operations help us further interpret or conceptualize (new) experience, an ever-changing world, as a result of which the conceptual system also changes. The meaning-making operations and the system of knowledge (in the form of concepts) we have about the world together constitute our conceptual system. However, for purposes of a clearer exposition I distinguish between the two by referring to the former as construal operations (i.e., our meaningmaking mechanisms) and to the latter as our conceptual system. (I discuss the latter in Chapter 3, and further clarify the relationship between the two in Chapter 10.) In the present chapter, I provide a brief description of those construal operations that are most directly (and obviously) involved in the creation and use of abstract concepts. The knowledge system that results from and is involved in the functioning of the meaning-making mechanisms is the topic of the next chapter.

Meaning Making

Construal Operations

Below is a list of construal operations that cognitive linguists typically work with (based on Langacker, 2008): Schematization/abstraction Image schemas Attention/focusing Figure–ground Scope of attention Scalar adjustment (granularity; fine-grained to course-grained conceptualization) Dynamic and static attention (sequential and summary scanning, including fictive motion) Prominence/salience Profile—base Trajector—landmark alignment Perspective Viewpoint Subjectivity–objectivity Metonymy Metaphor Mental spaces Conceptual integration As mentioned in the introduction, in this chapter I discuss only the construal operations that bear directly on abstract concepts. These operations include abstraction, schematization, attention, perspective (subjectivity–objectivity), metonymy, metaphor, and conceptual integration.

Abstraction and Schematization

Abstraction and schematization as meaning-making mechanisms often function jointly. Abstraction, according to Langacker (2008: 525), is “the reinforcement of what is common to multiple experiences.” It follows from this that since we build up concepts from multiple experiences based on some shared structure, concepts are themselves abstractions. The concepts are the types that are abstracted from instances of the type. This is known as the type vs. instance (token) distinction. Furthermore, even concepts that have to do with physical

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objects, such as ring, can become abstract ones in another sense by means of the process of schematization. In schematization, we can omit an increasing number of properties of perceptually accessible categories, and this can lead to abstractions. Thus the word ring in the sense of “circular piece of jewelry for finger” can become abstract through schematization and acquire the meaning any “circular entity.” The latter would be on a very high level of generality, and it would thus be abstract in that sense.

Attention and Perspective

Just as the processes of abstraction and schematization can operate jointly, so can attention and perspective taking. Often, what is called dynamic and static attention (Langacker, 1987, 2008) can be seen as inseparable from perspective taking. The notion of subjectivity (as opposed to objectivity) comes into play in connection with fictive situations in which a cognitive process is used to conceptualize an objective situation (Langacker, 2008). One example of this phenomenon is what Talmy (2000) calls “fictive motion.” We can think of a static situation in a dynamic way, as when we think and speak of the road as winding through the valley or a scar running from one’s elbow to the wrist (Langacker, 2008: 528–529). It is clear that the road or the scar does not move (objectively), and yet we conceptualize them as moving entities. But, as Langacker (2008) suggests, the ways real motion along a path and fictive motion along a path are conceptualized are similar. In real motion, the conceptualizer tracks the path along which a mover moves, but in fictive motion he tracks the object that is static (the road and the scar). On this view, it is the similarity in conceptualization that allows us to see fictive motion. It would be tempting to see fictive motion as a case of metaphoric conceptualization. In a metaphoric interpretation, it could be suggested that an objective static situation is viewed metaphorically in terms of the dynamic cognitive process that occurs during conceptualizing it. Using the dynamic cognitive process of tracking the path of a mover along a static path to conceptualize a static scene renders the static situation in a dynamic way. However, this interpretation is fairly unlikely because it would call for a reversal of the typical direction of source-to-target mappings (from concrete source to abstract target). The emerging metaphor would have to be a static concrete (objective) situation (target) being conceptualized as a dynamic abstract (subjective) situation (an internal cognitive operation), which is unlikely to be the case. Nevertheless, Talmy (2000: 171) entertains precisely this possibility: Now that we have further elaborated the nature of fictive motion and fictive stationariness, we can compare their relative frequency of occurrence

Meaning Making

in language and, perhaps also, in vision. In terms of metaphor theory, fictive motion in language can be interpreted as the mapping of motion as a source domain onto stationariness as a target domain. A mapping of this sort can be seen as a form of cognitive dynamism. Fictive stationariness, then, is the reverse: the mapping of stationariness as a source domain onto motion as a target domain. This sort of mapping, in turn, can be understood as a form of cognitive staticism. Given this framework, it can be observed that, in language, fictive motion occurs preponderantly more than fictive stationariness. That is, linguistic expressions that manifest fictive motion far outnumber ones that manifest fictive stationariness. In other words, linguistic expression exhibits a strong bias toward conceptual dynamism as against staticism. Talmy argues for the metaphoric interpretation of fictive motion on the basis of the preponderance of cognitive dynamism. It may be that the general bias for cognitive dynamism can override the unusual direction of the mapping. I discuss metaphor in a later section, where I also show that a metaphor account of fictive motion would not be entirely convincing.

Metonymy

Cognitive linguists do not think of metonymy as a cognitively insignificant and dispensable linguistic device whose only function is to avoid literalism and to make the expression of meaning more varied. Kövecses and Radden (1998) offer a definition of metonymy as follows: Metonymy is a cognitive process in which a conceptual element, or entity (thing, event, property), the vehicle, provides mental access to another conceptual entity (thing, event, property), the target, within the same frame, or idealized cognitive model (ICM). To use a well-known example, given the RESTAURANT frame, or idealized cognitive model, the speaker of the sentence “The ham sandwich spilled beer all over himself” directs attention, or provides mental access, to the conceptual element PERSON EATING THE HAM SANDWICH (target) through the use of another conceptual element HAM SANDWICH (vehicle) that belongs to the same frame. In the next chapter I distinguish between three types of connections, or mappings, between conceptual elements: “through-connection,” “as-if-connection,” and “is-connection.” In metonymy, the conceptual connection between the entities is such that one entity is mentally activated by or through another entity. This is a “through-connection.” In the case of metaphor, one entity becomes like another. We can call this an “as-if-connection.” Finally, since the connection between two frames or mental spaces often results in the identification of one

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entity with another, we can call it an “is-connection.” “Through-connections” (i.e., metonymic mappings) can be of two kinds: outward-looking and inwardlooking. Outward-looking metonymic mappings activate an entity that is outside, what Langacker (1987) calls the “primary domain” of the vehicle (or source) entity. An example of this is the sentence: “I bought another Hemingway,” where Hemingway, the (name of the) author, activates an entity, a book written by him. The primary domain that characterizes Hemingway (just like any other author) is that of a person. The metonymy then points beyond the primary domain to a “secondary domain,” which is his books. Inward-looking metonymies activate something inside their primary domain. Take the sentence “This book is large.” The word book seems to be definable by recourse to one or more primary domains: physical object, semantic content, and so on. For example, because books are physical objects, one of their defining features is that they have a particular shape, size, color, and so on. In the example, it is their size that is activated. In such cases, we can say that the mapping (or through-connection) is inward-looking. Given these distinctions, I offer a new definition of metonymy (based on Kövecses, 2010a): In metonymy, we access entity 2 through entity 1 by means of a “throughconnection.” Entity 1 and 2 are concepts (subdomains) or, in the case of entity 2, aspects of concepts, and the two are in the same frame, or idealized cognitive model. The mapping can be either inward-looking or outward looking. If it is outward-looking, it can result either in entity 1 referring to entity 2 or in entity 1 highlighting an aspect of entity 2. If it is inward-looking, entity 1 highlights an aspect of the same entity. In recent years, there has been an upsurge in the cognitive linguistic study of metonymy; for extensive collections of papers, see Panther and Radden (1999), Barcelona (2000), Dirven and Pörings (2002), and Panther and Thornburg (2003). For research concentrated on metonymy, see, among others, Brdar and Brdar-Szabó (2003), Brdar-Szabó and Brdar (2003), and Ruiz de Mendoza Ibanez (2000). Metaphor

As noted in the previous chapter, metaphor is a cognitive process in which one domain of experience (A) is conceptualized in terms of another domain of experience (B). Metaphor consists of a source ( B) and a target domain (A) such that the source is typically a more physical and the target a more abstract kind of domain. Examples of source and target domains include the following: source domains: WARMTH, BUILDING, WAR, JOURNEY; target domains: AFFECTION,

Meaning Making

respectively for the previous source domains. Thus we get conceptual metaphors: AFFECTION IS WARMTH; THEORIES ARE BUILDINGS; ARGUMENT IS WAR, LIFE IS A JOURNEY. What this means is that the concepts of AFFECTION, THEORY, ARGUMENT, and LIFE are comprehended via the concepts of WARMTH, BUILDING, WAR, and JOURNEY, respectively. THEORY, ARGUMENT, LIFE,

THE BASIS OF METAPHOR

On what basis do we pair target concepts with particular source concepts? The usual and traditional answer to this question is that there is some kind of similarity between the two concepts; that is, concept A is similar to concept B in some respect. Although cognitive linguists accept this kind of grounding, or motivation, for certain metaphors, they also take into account another kind of grounding for many other metaphors. The choice of a particular source to go with a particular target can also be motivated by some embodied experience. Let us take body heat as an example, as analyzed by Kövecses (2005). Imagine that you are working hard or you are doing some vigorous exercise. Vigorous bodily activity produces an increase in body heat. Typically, when we engage in vigorous bodily activity, our body will respond in this way. Similarly, when you are very angry, or when you have strong sexual feelings, or when you are under strong psychological pressure, your body may also produce an increase in body heat that manifests itself physiologically in a variety of ways. In all of these cases, the increase in the intensity of an activity or state goes together with an increase in body heat, and your body responds this way automatically. The correlation between the increase in the intensity of the activity or the state, on the one hand, and the production of body heat, on the other, is inevitable for the kinds of bodies that we have. This correlation forms the basis of a conceptual metaphor: INTENSITY IS HEAT. Since INTENSITY is an aspect of many concepts, the source domain of heat will apply to many concepts, such as ANGER, LOVE, LUST, WORK, ARGUMENT, and so forth. In general, many conceptual metaphors (i.e., source and target pairings) are motivated by such bodily correlations in experience. However, as noted previously, in a large number of other cases, the basis of combining a source with a target concept is some kind of real or assumed similarity, often a set of similar structural relations (see, e.g., Gentner, 1983; Glucksberg and Keysar, 1993; Holyoak and Thagard, 1996). For example, we can find shared generic-level structure in such domains as HUMAN LIFETIME and the LIFE CYCLE OF PLANTS. This similarity provides the grounding for the highly conventional conceptual metaphor: THE HUMAN LIFETIME IS THE LIFE CYCLE OF A PLANT. Metaphors like this occur because we have the ability to recognize shared generic-level structure in distinct domains. In summary, we can think of embodiment and similarity as different kinds of constraint on the creation of metaphor. Embodiment seems to be a stronger kind of constraint, in that it works automatically and unconsciously.

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The idea that metaphors can be motivated by correlations in bodily experience has given rise to the “neural theory of metaphor.” It is the brain that runs the body, and if metaphor is in the body it must also be in the brain. Embodied experience results in certain neural connections between areas of the brain (these areas corresponding to source and target). For example, it may be suggested that when the area of the brain corresponding to affection is activated, the area corresponding to warmth is also activated. The assumption in recent cognitively oriented neuroscientific studies is that when we comprehend abstract concepts metaphorically, two groups of neurons in the brain are activated at the same time; when one group of neurons fires (the source), another group of neurons fires as well (the target). (For more discussion, see, for e.g., Gallese and Lakoff, 2005; Feldman, 2006; Coulson, 2008; Lakoff, 2008, and several others, from a cognitive linguistic perspective). We can then assume that, for example, neurons corresponding to intensity and heat, respectively, are activated together in the brain when we think about the abstract concept of intensity in connection with certain events, activities, and states. Similarly, when we think about abstract amounts, such as prices, the neurons corresponding to amount and those corresponding to verticality (up–down) are coactivated in the brain. These coactivations of groups of neurons yield what are known as primary conceptual metaphors INTENSITY IS HEAT and MORE IS UP (LESS IS DOWN). (On “primary metaphors,” see Grady, 1997a, b.) I have argued recently that such primary metaphors emerge through a metonymic stage in their development (see Kövecses, 2013). METAPHORICAL SCHEMATIZATION

Metaphorical conceptualization can work jointly with the construal operation of schematization. Take the conceptualization of the biblical notion of HEAVEN (Kövecses, 2007). It is metaphorically viewed as a number of different places that share the property of “being ideal.” That is, the source domains of the concept of HEAVEN are all places where (eternal) life is good and pleasant—free of pain, sorrow, injustice, and so forth. The target concept of HEAVEN thus appears to be a schematically ideal place, hence the metaphor HEAVEN IS AN IDEAL PHYSICAL PLACE. The particular and specific nature and qualities of the places in the source domains are in a way “bleached out” with only the schematic idealization remaining. We can think of this schematic idealization as heaven. In other words, the target domain seems to be an idealized schematization of a variety of particular and specific source domains. In such cases, we can suggest that the target is a schematization of the various source domains relating to the target domain. The nature of this process of schematization is essentially metonymic. The sources are specific instances of the target; this is the metonymy A PARTICULAR INSTANCE OF A CATEGORY FOR THE WHOLE CATEGORY . We can put this in the present example as PARTICULAR PLACES

Meaning Making

. Since such places and heaven share only the property of “being ideal,” we can construe the basically metonymic relationship as a metaphor. Another example is the GOD IS A FATHER metaphor (see Kövecses, 2007). Given this conceptual metaphor, the nurturant aspect of GOD THE FATHER can be conceptualized through the generic-level metaphor PROVIDENCE IS NURTURANCE. I propose that this latter metaphor is also a case of schematization of the kind we just saw for heaven. The domain of FATHER in the GOD IS A FATHER metaphor consists of several distinct meaning foci. (On the notion of “meaning focus,” see Kövecses, 2005, 2010a.) One of these is that we expect the father to provide nurturance for his children. This nurturance can be of various sorts, such as providing food and also as providing “hidden manna,” that is, nonphysical food. In addition, nurturance includes helping and taking care of people in all kinds of ways and protecting them from danger. In this light, we can see God’s providential care as a schematization of different kinds of nurturance, hence PROVIDENCE IS NURTURANCE. The concept of PROVIDENCE schematizes the specific instances of nurturance and it thus becomes a concept that shares only one property with the various kinds of nurturance, namely, that God takes care of people. Similar to the concept of HEAVEN, the PROVIDENCE IS NURTURANCE metaphor is based on a metonymic relationship in which SPECIFIC INSTANCES OF A CATEGORY FOR THE WHOLE CATEGORY ; in other words PROVIDING FOOD, and the like, metonymically stand for PROVIDENTIAL CARE. The only link between the two ideas is that in both people are taken care of. This enables us to think of the metonymy as metaphor. Actually, we can account for the other meaning focus of GOD AS FATHER in a similar way, although this is somewhat more complicated. I suggest that God as the creator can be conceptualized via the CAUSATION IS PROGENERATION generic-level metaphor. What we have in this case is the following: There is the GOD IS A FATHER metaphor, in which FATHER has as its meaning focus “progeneration.” In the metaphor, we have the mapping “progeneration ➔ creation.” The relation between progeneration and creation is also based on metonymy; namely, a SPECIFIC INSTANCE OF A CATEGORY FOR THE WHOLE CATEGORY (i.e., progeneration is one kind of creation). Furthermore, creation is a specific instance of causation. This is again a metonymic relationship. The relationship explains in part the existence of the generic-level metaphor CAUSATION IS PROGENERATION. Finally, another metonymy-based relationship, that obtaining between progeneration and causation (progeneration is a kind of causation) provides further motivation for the same metaphor. The point is that causation is a metonymybased schematization of both the specific-level concept of progeneration and the generic-level concept of creation. What happens in all of these cases is that specific instances that share a feature are converted into a schematic category. This schematization becomes the target domain of a number of different but related source domains (i.e., THAT ARE PLEASANT TO BE IN FOR HEAVEN

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the different source domains share a high-level feature). I believe that this is a metonymy-based process, but its end result functions as a metaphor, such as the various specific-level versions of HEAVEN IS AN IDEAL PHYSICAL PLACE or GOD IS A FATHER with its generic-level versions: CAUSATION IS PROGENERATION and PROVIDENCE (PROVIDENTIAL CARE) IS NURTURANCE. If this analysis is on the right track, it can be suggested that this is a new type of metaphor. In the cognitive linguistic literature on metaphor, it is customary to distinguish two basic types of metaphor: those based on similarity (perceived or real) and those on correlations in experience (such as primary metaphors). The metaphors such as HEAVEN IS AN IDEAL PHYSICAL PLACE, CAUSATION IS PROGENERATION, and PROVIDENCE IS NURTURANCE are based on the source domain schematized into the target; the target is a schematic version of the source, where the specific rich imagery of the source is bleached out. In sum, some metaphors can emerge from schematization via a metonymic process.

Conceptual Integration

To see what conceptual integration, or blending, involves, we can take an example from a well-known metaphor: ANGER IS A HOT FLUID IN A CONTAINER (see Kövecses, 1986, 1990; Lakoff, 1987; Lakoff and Kövecses, 1987). This metaphor is constituted by the mappings “container ➔ body,” “hot fluid ➔ anger,” “degrees of heat ➔ degrees of intensity,” and so forth. However, there is more going on than just having straightforward mappings from source to target in one of the linguistic manifestations of this metaphor. Take the following example: God, he was so mad I could see the smoke coming out of his ears. The “smoke/fume/steam” example was reanalyzed by Fauconnier and Turner (2002), who point out that in this case an element of the source is blended with an element of the target. They point out that there are no ears in the source and there is no smoke in the target, but in the blend a frame is created with smoke/ fume/steam and ears in it. The new frame is given linguistically as the smoke coming out of his ears. They note, furthermore, that the blend can be “developed” further. One can say, for example: God, was he ever mad. I could see the smoke coming out of his ears—I thought his hat would catch fire! The understanding of this sentence in addition requires the understanding of how the notion of intensity is conceptualized in the network (see earlier): A submapping of the ANGER IS HEAT metaphor is INTENSITY OF EMOTION IS DEGREE OF HEAT. Given this submapping, we have a piece of knowledge that a high degree of heat may cause fire and that, correspondingly, “intense anger may cause a dangerous social situation.” The notion of “hat” emerges as we run

Meaning Making Source Domain: (Input 1) Hot fluid in a container

Target Domain: (Input 2) Angry person

ears

smoke

The Blend I could see smoke coming out of his ears... FIGURE 2.1

Running the Blend ...I thought his hat would catch f ire!

The “smoke coming out of his ears” blend.

the previous blend with the “smoke coming out of one’s ears,” where the headcontainer with the ears metonymically evokes the hat, which is typically worn on the head. Owing to the entailment of the INTENSITY IS HEAT metaphor (“high degree of heat may cause fire”), the hat can be seen as catching fire. This would indicate an overall increase in the intensity and dangerousness of the person’s anger. The overall network relating to the understanding of the sentence is given in Figure 2.1. This is a highly creative blend, but, as Fauconnier and Turner (2002) emphasize, blending just as commonly involves entirely everyday and conventionalized cases. Another example might be helpful. Let us continue with the analysis of fictive motion as metaphor, as Talmy suggests (e.g., the sentence The road is winding through the valley). Under a strict conceptual-metaphor-theory analysis, the target domain would be a static frame, or scene, consisting of the road , the valley, and the direction through. The source domain would be the dynamic frame, or scene, of an entity moving, for instance, a truck , along the road in relation (e.g., through) to the valley. We would expect the following mappings, or correspondences to apply (DS = Dynamic Source, ST = Static Target): DS road DS valley DS through DS motion DS moving entity

→ → → → →

ST road ST valley ST through ? ?

But there are two problems with this analysis, as indicated by the incomplete mappings (with the question marks). One is that “motion” in the source would

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have to be mapped onto “lack of motion,” such that “DS motion → ST lack of motion,” but this is clearly not possible. Second, the problem for conceptual metaphor theory would be that the source involves a moving entity (e.g., truck), but this moving entity is not mapped onto the target at all. A reanalysis in terms of conceptual integration theory would help us in the following way. It could be suggested that the DS “motion” is mapped to the blend without the “moving entity.” That is, there is only selective projection from the source into the blend. In the same way, there is only selective projection from the target into the blend, where the path is “stationary,” but the stationary character of the path is not projected into the blend. In the blend, the ST “road” (path) is combined with the DS “motion.” (We could think of this as the personification or “mobile-objectification” of the path.) Thus, fictivity could be seen as arising from the real motion (of an entity) in the source being mapped onto the stationariness of the target path. This way, conceptual integration can account for cases that could not be explained by means of conceptual metaphor theory alone.

Differential Cognitive Styles

The application of different construal, or cognitive, operations, either by individuals or groups, can result in “differential cognitive styles” (see Kövecses, 2005). Differential cognitive styles can be defined as the characteristic ways in which members of a group employ the (otherwise universal) cognitive processes available to them. Such cognitive processes, discussed in part earlier, as elaboration, specificity, conventionalization, transparency, (experiential) focus, viewpoint preference, prototype categorization, framing, metaphor vs. metonymy preference, and others, though universally available to all humans, are not employed in the same way by all groups or individuals. As a result, these cognitive processes can lead to variation in the use of metaphors. (Additional sources of metaphor variation are discussed in Chapter 4.) Below I briefly describe these construal operations in relation to their constraining effect on metaphor use across individuals and groups on the basis of research in the cognitive linguistic study of metaphor. (For a fuller discussion of these with examples, see Kövecses, 2005, chapter 9.) EXPERIENTIAL FOCUS

Given multiple aspects of embodiment for a particular target domain, groups of speakers and even individuals may differ in which aspect of its embodiment they will use for metaphorical conceptualization (for examples, see Kövecses, 2005 and Chapter 5). I use the term “experiential focus” to refer to this operation. Consider as an example the case of English and Chinese metaphors for

Meaning Making

anger. King (1989) and Yu (1995, 1998) point out that in Chinese body heat plays a much weaker weaker role in the emergence of anger metaphors than in English and other languages. Whereas in English heat-related metaphorical expressions for anger abound (such as boil, seethe, simmer, hotheaded ), ), in Chinese their occurrence is much less frequent. Chinese seems to emphasize internal pressure, rather than body heat, in the emergence and use of anger metaphors. This results from differences in the way English and Chinese speakers focus on particular aspects of their physiology physiology in anger. SALIENCE

In a sense, salience is the converse of focusing on something. In focusing, a person highlights or profiles (an aspect of) something, whereas in the case of salience (an aspect of) something becomes salient for the person. In different cultures different concepts are salient, that is, psychologically more prominent. Salient concepts are more likely to become both source and target domains than nonsalient ones and their salience may depend on the ideology that underlies discourse. For example, Boers and Demecheleer (1997, 2001) suggested that the concepts of HAT and SHIP are more productive of metaphorical idioms in English (e.g., hats off, a hat trick ) than in French, and, conversely, the concepts of SLEEVE and FOOD are more productive of metaphorical idioms in French than in English. The authors argue that this happens because the former two concepts are relatively more salient for speakers of (British) English, whereas the latter two are relatively more salient for speakers of French. The informal experiments conducted by these researchers seem to indicate that Frenchspeaking students could more easily guess the meaning of unknown English idioms involving SLEEVE and FOOD than that of unknown English idioms inHAT T and SHIP. Thus, the differential volving the concepts concepts of HA differential salience of concepts across cultures may may influence the use of metaphor metaphorical ical idioms. PROTOTYPE CA CATEGORIZATION TEGORIZATION

Often, there are differences in the prototypes across groups and individuals. When such prototypical categories become source domains for metaphors, the result is variation in metaphor. When a source domain concept in one culture is represented by a particular prototype and the corresponding concept in another culture by another prototype, the conceptual metaphors involving these prototypical concepts will also differ. The prototypical concepts that we use in conceptual metaphors are based on our experiences in the cultures in which we live. An interesting example of this is provided by Chilton and Lakoff (1995), who analyze the notion of HOUSE in the conceptual metaphor popular in the 1990s: A COMMON EUROPEAN HOUSE. The notion of HOUSE is represented by different prototypes in western Europe and Russia, more precisely, the former

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Soviet Union, where the metaphor came from. The differences in the prototype (free-standing house with one family vs. a large apartment building) lead to different metaphorical inferences concerning certain political issues, given this conceptual metaphor. FRAMING

Groups and individuals may use the “same” source concept in metaphorical conceptualization, but they may frame the “same” concept differentially. The resulting metaphors will show variation (in proportion to differences in framing). METAPHOR VS. METONYMY PREFERENCE

Several cognitive processes may be used to conceptualize a particular target domain. Groups and individuals may differ in which cognitive process they prefer. A common difference across groups and individual people involves whether they prefer metaphoric or metonymic conceptualization for a particular domain. As we saw in Chapter 1, Charteris-Black (2003) examined the figurative urati ve uses of three concepts—mouth, concepts—mouth, tongue, tongue, and lip—in li p—in English and Malay (tight-lipped , tongue-tied ). ). In addition to the similarities in metaphorical conceptualization, he also found that the figurative expressions involving the three concepts tended to be metonymic in English and metaphoric in Malay. It seems that in the domain of speech organs the figurative employment of these concepts is culture specific. ELABORATION

As noted by Barcelona (2001), a particular conceptual metaphor may may give rise to a larger or smaller num number ber of linguistic expressions in different different languages. languages. If it gives rise to a larger number of types (not tokens) of expressions, it is more elaborated. (See also Lakoff and Kövecses, 1987.) Given the conceptual metaphor ANGER IS A HOT FLUID IN A CONTAINER, American English is characterized by metaphorical expressions such as blow a fuse, blow a gasket and flip your lid, blow your top, blow your stack, fly off the handle. According to Barcelona, one does not find such a wealth of expressio expressions ns in Spanish to describe anger (see also Kövecses, et al., in press, as regards the issue of differential degrees of elaboration across different languages). SPECIFICITY

Barcelona (2001) notes that linguistic metaphors may vary according to the level of a specificity hierarchy at which they are expressed in different groups

Meaning Making

of speaker speakerss. A group of speakers may may express a particular meaning at one level of specificity, whereas the same meaning may be expressed at a different level of specificity by another group. The combined metaphor ( CAUSED) CHANGE OF STATE IS (CAUSED) MOTION INTO A CONTAINER can be expressed in English at both a generic and a specific spec ific level. Whereas one can say in English “His beha beh avior sent me into a fury” (with send as as generic) or “The news threw him into a state” (with throw as specific), in Spanish, according to Barcelona, the more specific “throw someone into a state” is not quite acceptable. In other words, as evidenced by several examples, Spanish speakers tend to express this conceptual metaphor at a higher level of generality than speakers of English. CONVENTIONALIZATION

Finally, Barcelona (2001) also observes that linguistic instantiations of the same conceptual metaphor in two languages may differ differ in their degree of conventionalization. A linguistic metaphor in one language may be more or less conventional than the corresponding linguistic metaphor in another language. According to Barcelona (2001), the Spanish metaphor in “Romeo se ha enamorado (‘Romeo is in love’)” is less conventional and more creative than the metaphor in “Romeo fell in love with Juliet” in English although both metaphorical expressions are based on the same conceptual metaphor, LOVE IS A CONTAINER. These construal operations constrain the use of metaphors; in particular, they produce variation in metaphors by means of how speakers present a metaphor. I will show in Chapters 4 and 6 that there are additional constraining factors that can produce variation in that such factors can actually prime the use of certain metaphors. metaphors. I call the factors in the latter group “contextual factors” in the chapters to follow.

Conclusions

Meaning making involves a number of construal operations. Of these, I have discussed operations that are clearly involved in the creation and interpretation of abs abstract tract concepts: abstraction, schematization, schematization, attention, perspectivization, metonymy, metaphor, and conceptual integration. We use these cognitive mechanisms in the conceptualization of our experience that involve abstractions of various kinds. kinds. An important property of such operations is that they often work jointly. We saw how abstraction often involves schematization, how attention and perspectivization function together, how metaphor can be based on schematization, and how metaphor and conceptual integration can also combine. The main focus of the chapter was on the mechanism of metaphor. First, building on the information introduced in Chapter 1, I developed further the

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view of metaphor in cognitive linguistics that is relevant to what follows in later chapters. Second, I pointed out that conceptual metaphors can emerge in several ways. In addition to the traditionally recognized emergence of many metaphors from some kind of similarity, or resemblance, and the less commonly recognized source of correlations in experience, I offered a potentially useful third possibility for the emergence emergence of conceptual metaphors: metaphors: emergence through schematization. Finally, I discussed a set of construal operations that are responsible for variation variat ion in the use of metaphor metaphorss. The differential application application of construal operations constitutes a particular “cognitive style” for speakers of a language. Metaphor variation partially results from the constraining effects of the differential cognitive styles of individual speakers and groups. However, as we will see in later chapters, there are other factors that play just as important a role in producing variation and creativity in the use of metaphors. These other factors have to do with aspects of what we simply take to be the linguistic and nonlinguistic context—the context—the major focus of this book.

3

The Conceptual System

In the view I am proposing here and in line with the general consensus, a conceptual system is both a process and a product. I dealt with the process part of the conceptual system (the part that produces abstract concepts) in Chapter 2, where a variety of cognitive, or construal, operations were discussed. In the present chapter, emphasis is placed on the conceptual system as a product, that is, on the resulting largely conventionalized system of concepts that individuals have and large portions of which they share in a given community. However, it has to be borne in mind throughout the discussion that the conceptual system consists of both the cognitive operations and their output. This way of thinking about the conceptual system will help us better understand the broad notion of context I develop in this book: a cognitivist view in which the conventional conceptual system may be seen as (one type of) context. This view will become especially valuable when I discuss “culture” and its relationship to metaphor in Chapter 5, as well as the role of the conceptual system in understanding humor in Chapter 8. One of the most comprehensive and profound statements on the nature of the human conceptual system is Barsalou’s (1999) paper “Perceptual symbol systems.” Barsalou notes many similarities between his approach and the work on conceptual structure in cognitive linguistics (Johnson, 1987; Lakoff, 1987; Langacker, 1987; Fauconnier, 1997). In the present chapter, I attempt to follow up on Barsalou’s observations concerning such similarities and develop one possible cognitive linguistic approach to some of the issues that Barsalou finds important regarding conceptual systems. However, my characterization of the conceptual system will be less comprehensive and detailed than Barsalou’s. I focus my attention on issues pertaining to abstract concepts in the conceptual system on the basis of my own research on metaphor (Kövecses, 2010a, b), metonymy (Kövecses and Radden, 1998; Radden and Kövecses, 1999; Kövecses, 2010a), and figurative aspects of emotion concepts (Kövecses, 2000a, 2008b).

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This narrowing of attention is justified because the nature and role of abstract concepts in the conceptual system raises a key issue for what Barsalou calls “modal,” or perceptual, symbol systems: How can a conceptual system that contains abstract concepts be fully modal, or perceptual (i.e., embodied)? The conceptual system can be regarded as the way in which the brain organizes knowledge about the world. Most of this knowledge is unconscious. The conceptual system is not something transcendental. It is based on the brain, and the brain supports all the cognitive, or construal, operations we utilize in the process of conceptualizing the world. It is the brain’s neurons and the functioning of neurons that create such systems. In Barsalou’s (1999) system, concepts function as “simulators.” Memories of perceptual experience are organized into frames, and they implement simulators. Such simulators, in turn, produce a limitless number of simulations (of sensory, proprioceptive, and introspective experience). The simulators represent types, and the types constitute a conceptual system. I continue to use the term “concept” in this chapter and later in the book but mean it in Barsalou’s sense. (A more detailed presentation of Barsalou’s theory and its adaptation to the study of conceptual metaphors can be found in Ritchie, 2006.)

Properties of Human Conceptual Systems

Barsalou (1999) identifies a number of functions that a conceptual system must perform. Specifically, the human conceptual system must be capable of ¤ Providing a complete mental representation of immediately accessible experience ¤ Allowing for the representation of nonimmediate experience ¤ Being accessible to a large number of its users ¤ Making sense of the world ¤ Enabling making inferences from the representations used ¤ Allowing for productivity and creativity

I borrow this set of issues from Barsalou’s extremely influential paper, but my presentation of the issues and the solutions I suggest will in some cases be different from his, especially for issues that involve abstract concepts and metaphor. My major goal is to interpret, present, and resolve the issues from my particular cognitive linguistic perspective. PROVIDING A COMPLETE MENTAL REPRESENTATION OF IMMEDIATELY ACCESSIBLE EXPERIENCE

Possibly the most important task of a conceptual system is to be able to mentally represent the immediately accessible world. The mental representation


takes place through organizing experience into concepts. The concepts that make up a conceptual system should cover the entire range of immediately accessible human experience, including sensory experience in all modalities (visual, tactile, auditory, olfactory, and gustatory) and proprioceptive (run) and introspective (think ) experience. However, as I show in later chapters (especially in Chapter 9), this does not mean that in a particular communicative situation our entire knowledge representation in relation to a concept is present, or is activated, in the course of metaphorically conceptualizing an aspect of the world. ALLOWING FOR THE REPRESENTATION OF NONIMMEDIATE EXPERIENCE

Human beings can also build up aspects of the world that represent nonimmediate, indirect experience. They imaginatively create entities and events that cannot be observed or perceived as a part of immediate reality, entities and events that go beyond what is directly experienceable through the senses or proprioception or introspection. Although they cannot directly experience them, they can create and imagine them, and can actually believe that they are real. BEING ACCESSIBLE TO A LARGE NUMBER OF ITS USERS

The human conceptual system must be widely accessible. For this reason, users (e.g., speakers) turn the concepts (i.e., the mental representations of the world) into linguistic symbols. This happens through pairing the concepts with particular forms (sounds, writing, pictures, symbols of any kind, etc.). The users of concepts thereby make the concepts accessible to others. This arises from the need to make concepts and conceptual systems in general a social vehicle of communication. MAKING SENSE OF THE WORLD

To accomplish the goal of conceptualizing and describing the situations we are confronted with in the world, the concepts that make up a conceptual system must be meaningful. As we will see, the issue of how concepts are seen as acquiring meaningfulness is a major dividing line between theories of conceptual systems. ENABLING MAKING INFERENCES FROM THE REPRESENTATIONS USED

A human conceptual system must be capable of accounting for how concepts and combinations of concepts provide a great deal more knowledge about entities and situations than what one would expect from particular concepts and their combinations if they were static and unexpandable. For example, if we hear the sentence The doctor cured the patient, we can make all sorts of

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inferences given the meaning of the sentence. Our ability to make such inferences is a remarkable feature of human conceptual systems. ALLOWING FOR PRODUCTIVITY AND CREATIVITY

Characteristic of human conceptual systems is their ability to produce an infinitely large number of concepts and their combinations (usually termed propositions). Human conceptual systems can also produce novel concepts and conceptualizations whereby they construe (interpret) and describe entities and situations in alternate and/or novel ways. How can human conceptual systems accomplish these tasks, and what is the human conceptual system like that can perform these functions? Before I characterize such a conceptual system, let us see the two general kinds of models for the human conceptual system that have been proposed for carrying out these tasks.

Types of Models for Conceptual Systems

There are essentially two types of models for the conceptual systems that have been characterized in the preceding text. Among the various views, Barsalou and others (see especially Barsalou, 1999) distinguish between “perceptual,” or “modal,” on the one hand, and “nonperceptual,” or “amodal,” conceptual systems, on the other, in a cognitive psychology and cognitive science context. Along similar lines, Lakoff, Johnson, Langacker, and others (see especially Lakoff and Johnson, 1980; Johnson, 1987; Lakoff 1987; Langacker, 1987, 2008; Lakoff and Johnson, 1999) draw a very similar distinction between “experientialist” and “objectivist” views of conceptual systems from a cognitive linguistics perspective. The fundamental idea on which the models of conceptual systems in both Barsalou’s theory and the theory of cognitive linguists rest is that of embodiment (see, e.g., Gibbs, 2006; Casasanto, 2009). What embodiment means in the perceptual, modal (or experientialist) view is that the human conceptual system is largely based on perceptual experience. In other words, we make sense of the world through concepts that are meaningful to us as a result of perceptual experience. This type of conceptual system is radically opposed to conceptual systems in which concepts are not based on perceptual experience, that is, where concepts are seen as residing in a different modality than the one that actually produces them. Whereas in the former type of model, concepts are analogously related to their corresponding perceptual experience, in the latter type the relationship is arbitrary. It is in this sense, it can be suggested, with Barsalou (1999), that whereas the former type of system is “modal,” the latter is “amodal.”


Characteristics of Concepts Participating in These Tasks

For a perceptual, or experiential, conceptual system to be capable of performing the tasks we have noted earlier, the concepts that make up the system must have at least the following properties. They must be ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤

Embodied Prototype-based Schematic Frame-based Linguistically coded

EMBODIED

By definition, concepts in a perceptual, modal, or experientialist, conceptual system must be embodied. In the cognitive linguistic view, the embodiment of concepts arises in several ways. First, concepts are based on image schemas that constitute early preconceptual experiences and they are constantly reinforced in everyday life (Johnson, 1987; Lakoff, 1987). Such image schemas as container, part–whole, source–path–goal, force and resistance to force, and others, underlie many of our concepts. The container image schema defines concepts such as IN, OUT, and ENTER; the source–path–goal schema defines concepts such as JOURNEY, ARRIVE, TRAVEL, and LEAVE; and the force schema concepts such as PUSH, PULL, RESIST, and EMOTION. Second, in many cases concepts are defined by properties that are “interactional,” and not objectively inherent in entities (see, e.g., Rosch, 1978; Lakoff and Johnson, 1980). Such properties include sensorymotor activities, perceptual shape and other qualities, relative size, function, goal, and several additional ones. These are properties that emerge from our interactions with objects. As Barsalou (1999) notes, a serious problem for models of perceptual symbol systems is how to handle abstract concepts as regards embodiment: since what makes concepts abstract is that they are not based on perceptual experience, abstract concepts cannot be embodied. We see below how a cognitive linguistic approach deals with this issue. PROTOTYPE-BASED

In an experientialist conceptual system, concepts are defined in terms of prototypes (Rosch, 1975, 1978; Lakoff, 1987). A prototype is the “best example” of a conceptual category. The examples of a conceptual category are the “members” belonging to it. The members that belong together can be concepts for objects and events in the world (e.g., kinds of chairs), senses of words (e.g., senses of the word love), or linguistic categories (such as NOUN). Prototypical members

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(i.e., the best examples) are represented as conceptual frames; nonprototypical members are given as modifications or “deviations” from frames for prototypical members. The idea that concepts are defined in terms of prototypes does not mean that people have the exact same prototypes. Barsalou’s work and that of others indicates that context plays a significant role here (Barsalou, 1983; Gibbs, 2003a). SCHEMATIC

Concepts are not only prototype-based in the preceding sense, but they are also schematic. Prototypes are always schematic mental representations. A concept carries much less detailed information than an instance of the concept. In other words, a concept is always a schematized version of the instances that it denotes. It is a type, not an instance, or token. Concepts are schematic in a further sense: they are based on highly general image-schematic structures. Many concepts share the underlying image schema for physical object and many other concepts share the schema for process. This is the basis for the distinction in cognitive linguistics between nouns and verbs (see Langacker, 1987). FRAME-BASED

Concepts are frame-based in two ways. One is, as noted earlier, that prototypical members of concepts are present in the conceptual system in the form of frames in the sense of Fillmore (1982). Minimally, frames can be constituted by feature lists, as, for instance, in one of Rosch’s examples: BIRD. The prototype for BIRD in North America can be characterized as “has wings,” “can fly,” “can sing,” and “has small body.” Given this prototype a robin is a better example of BIRD than, say, an ostrich. Most frames, however, cannot be given as simple feature lists. Instead, they are constituted by a complex network of entities and relations between the entities. The COMPETITION frame, for example, consists of PARTICIPANTS, PLACE, PRIZE, RANK, SCORE, VENUE, and relations, such as WIN, LOSE, PLAY, SCORE, DEFEAT, COME IN, and TIE (Framenet). The second way in which concepts are frame-based is that in many cases a concept that is appropriately characterized as a feature list is embedded in a background frame. A case in point is the concept of BREAKFAST (Fillmore, 1982). Though we can characterize the concept with the features “the meal we have after a period of sleep,” “the meal we eat early in the day,” and “the meal that has a special menu,” this makes sense only against the background of a general frame for the CYCLE OF MEALS IN THE COURSE OF A DAY. Many more complications are possible in how frames provide a background for the understanding of experience. The example of BACHELOR as discussed by Fillmore is well known. The term bachelor is applicable to PEOPLE (HUMAN) who are ADULT, MALE, and NOT MARRIED only if the frame for the typical MALE LIFE CYCLE also


applies. Thus, the pope and Tarzan are not acceptable (or very marginal) members of the conceptual category of BACHELOR. LINGUISTICALLY CODED

Finally, the frames for concepts are conventionally associated with word forms. In other words, frames are linguistically coded. The use of words for particular frames evokes the frames associated with them. This makes it possible to activate frames in discourse, thus allowing conceptualization to take place. In addition, the words for concepts that are part of a frame also evoke the whole frame. For example, the concept GOALKEEPER is one of the entities that make up the SOCCER/FOOTBALL frame. The word goalkeeper thus evokes the entire frame for SOCCER/FOOTBALL. I do not claim, however, that words (or concepts) always evoke the entire frame that they are associated with or to which they belong. Often, in particular communicative situations several elements from several frames will be assembled to constitute particular mental spaces (Fauconnier, 1985, 1997). I suggest that frames are aspects of long-term memory (and are conventional and coherent organizations of experience), whereas mental spaces are temporary or online, though structured, assemblages of concepts that emerge in particular communicative situations.

Kinds of Concepts Making Up the System

The traditional distinction divides concepts into two basic kinds: concrete and abstract. On the traditional view, concrete concepts are those that have to do with tangible aspects of reality, that is, they can be experienced by means of sensory-motor processes. In contrast, abstract concepts are those for intangible aspects of reality, that is, ones that cannot be experienced through sensorymotor processes. As mentioned previously, given this distinction, experientialist theories of conceptual systems are assumed to run into difficulty in the case of abstract concepts: If abstract concepts are not based on perceptual experience, they cannot be embodied, and if they are not embodied, we cannot have a fully perceptual, modal, or experientialist model for conceptual systems either. We can resolve this apparent contradiction if we do not think of abstract concepts in the traditional way. This is possible in a cognitive linguistic framework that provides a much more refined view of abstract concepts than was available previously. In this view, abstract concepts are not limited to concepts corresponding to intangible aspects of reality. Langacker (2008) discusses the issue under the rubric of fictivity and proposes that there are essentially three ways in which abstract concepts can emerge: (1) abstraction, (2) metaphor and conceptual integration, and (3) subjectivity. I briefly discussed these ways of creating abstract concepts in Chapter 2, where we saw some examples for each.

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Now the question is whether and how abstract concepts can be embodied in an experientialist conceptual system. Given the analyses we saw in Chapter 2, the following answer can be provided to this question. The examples for abstraction/schematization (the two senses of ring ) indicate that perceptual aspects of concepts are preserved in the case of abstractions. In the first example, shared sensory-motor experience (embodiment) creates the abstraction, while in the second a feature of that experience is the basis for the abstract concept. As regards metaphorical conceptualization, a major issue concerning many metaphors (see examples in Chapter 2) is whether they actually create (aspects of) abstract concepts or simply reflect a preexisting conceptual structure associated with the abstract concepts in question. Some scholars claim that the metaphors are merely based on some basic literal structure associated with abstract concepts (Quinn, 1991; Barsalou, 1999). Others argue that even the assumed basic literal structure for abstract concepts is inconceivable without the contribution of “constitutive” metaphors (Johnson, 1987; Lakoff and Kövecses, 1987; Gibbs, 1999; Kövecses, 1999). This is not to suggest, however, that all metaphors have the power to affect, and thus constitute, the core of abstract concepts. That is to say, I readily admit that there are indeed metaphors that simply reflect and often just adorn previously existing (aspects of) abstract concepts. Interestingly, both the constitutive view of metaphor and the “preexisting literal structure view” support the idea that abstract concepts are based on perceptual, or sensory-motor, experience. This is because, given an abstract target and a physical source domain, there is either a correlation between an abstraction and a corresponding bodily experience (e.g., Grady, 1997a, b) or there is a literal (Quinn, 1991; Barsalou, 1999) or metaphorical similarity between them. Finally, concerning fictive motion, in Chapter 2 I noted, following Langacker, that the way real motion along a path and fictive motion along a path are conceptualized are similar, since in real motion the conceptualizer tracks the path along which a mover moves and in fictive motion he tracks the object that is static (the road and the scar). It is this similarity in conceptualization that allows us to see fictive motion. It should then be noticed that subjectivity (fictive motion) is based on embodiment as well. Here a cognitive process (or processes) provides the bodily motivation for the creation of fictive elements. This argument for fictive motion applies no matter how we conceive of fictive motion: whether we think of it as metaphorical (and blending) or nonmetaphorical (see Chapter 2). In sum, in all three cases of abstract concepts the concepts are based on perceptual experience, which means that they are embodied. In other words, in an experientialist model of the conceptual system, in addition to concrete concepts (Gibbs, 2003b), abstract concepts are also embodied, that is, they are not disembodied abstractions. As a result, it is possible to have a fully


perception-based, modal, or embodied, conceptual system. (For a similar idea in a non–cognitive-linguistic framework, see Cacciari, 2008.)

Nature of the System

What, then, are the overall features of a perceptual, or experientialist, conceptual system? Given the discussion so far, the following properties emerge: A perceptual, modal, or experientialist conceptual system is Embodied Schematic Imagistic Partly arbitrary And at this point, we can add a property not mentioned before: Hierarchical

EMBODIED

As we have seen in the characterization of concepts above, all concepts, including both concrete and abstract concepts in the traditional terminology, are embodied; that is, they are based on perceptual experience either directly (as in nonmetaphorical concepts) or indirectly (as in metaphorical concepts). SCHEMATIC

Concepts in a conceptual system are schematic. This means that they represent types, not instances, and that they code much less detailed information than particular instances. Thus, concepts do not represent individuals (particular instances) but groups, or classes of individuals. This does not mean, however, that concepts cannot be used to pick out individuals in the course of actual usage events. IMAGISTIC

What kind of form does thought (i.e., the combination of concepts) have in an experientialist conceptual system? Most cognitive linguists propose that thought is not based on propositions, which are strings of arbitrary symbols, similar to the arbitrary character of the linguistic sign. Instead, thought involves the use of highly abstract but experientially based image schemas (Johnson, 1987; Lakoff, 1987; Hampe, 2005; Gibbs, 2006). As noted previously, these are schematizations of some of our most basic activities that have to do with

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motion, space, vision, force, and so forth. In thought, they are combined to yield complex structures for the conceptualization of the world, and in metaphorical thought they are metaphorically projected onto abstract domains of experience. By virtue of the fact that they derive from basic human experience, image schemas bear an analogical, rather than an arbitrary, relationship to what they are used to conceptualize. In other words, the conceptualization of the world in the experiential model of the conceptual system is imagistic rather than propositional. PARTLY ARBITRARY

However, in one very specific sense the conceptual system does have an arbitrary character. It arises from the linguistic coding of concepts mentioned earlier. The linguistic forms associated with concepts are arbitrarily chosen in particular languages, and this lends a considerable degree of arbitrariness to the overall conceptual system. But cognitive linguists see much less arbitrariness even here than other linguists do. In addition to the presence of onomatopoeia, additional forms of nonarbitrariness are recognized by cognitive linguists. These include the recognition of the pervasiveness of polysemy in language (Lakoff, 1987; Langacker, 1987), the motivated nature of morphological changes in actual usage (Langacker, 1987), and the widespread use of iconicity in syntax (Haiman, 1985). HIERARCHICAL

A final overall property of an experientialist conceptual system is that it is layered and the layers are hierarchical. This means that concepts can occupy various levels of generality in the system (hierarchical) and that various concepts can occupy the same level (layered). Metaphorically speaking, such a system can be said to be a vertically layered system. This idea was explored by E. Rosch and her associates (see, e.g., Rosch, 1978), who proposed a three-layered system (others suggested more layers): Superordinate level Basic level Subordinate level In this view, some concepts are at the superordinate level (e.g., FURNITURE), some at the basic level (e.g., CHAIR), and some at the superordinate level (e.g., KITCHEN CHAIR). The psychologically most important level is the basic level. Most of our interactions with the world take place at this level—perceptually (this is the highest level where we have an overall shape for an entity), in terms of motor activities (this is the highest level where we perform similar actions in relation to an entity), in terms of knowledge organization (this is the level


where most of our knowledge about entities is organized), and communicatively (this is the level where we use words in neutral contexts, where words come into the language first, where words are learned first by children). For all these reasons, it appears that the entry level to the conceptual system (at least for adults) is the basic level. Moreover, since concepts at the basic level are embodied, concepts on the other levels that derive from the basic level will also be embodied. And most importantly, the particular usefulness of the basic level derives from the fact that it is the level where we can group together items (individuals) that are maximally similar to each other but at the same time the resulting conceptual categories are maximally different. This is not possible to do at either the superordinate level (where conceptual categories making up a superordinate category are different from each other) or at the subordinate level (where, though the individuals making up a subordinate category will be similar to each other, the conceptual categories making up a basic-level category are also similar to each other).

The Organization of the Conceptual System

In this section, I briefly discuss two kinds of organization that characterize the conceptual system: (1) “vertical” organization, which, essentially, provides for a thematic, or topical, structure in the system and (2) “horizontal” organization, which, essentially, consists of smaller domains, or frames. VERTICAL ORGANIZATION: THEMATIC STRUCTURE

Superordinate-level concepts define large thematic groups in the system (such as VEHICLE, FURNITURE, EMOTION). The concepts in such groups belong to particular hierarchies because they share features with a higher level conceptual category. Thus, people set up the thematic groups on the basis of perceiving similarities between levels. For example, CAR would be assigned to VEHICLE on the basis of sharing with other prototypical vehicles such features as “transportation” and “motion” and JOY would be regarded as belonging to EMOTION on the basis of sharing with other prototypical emotions such features as “a cause producing certain facial expressions” and/or “a generalized arousal.” We can think of these thematic groups as hierarchical taxonomies. Such taxonomies probably exist both for entities and relations—the basic conceptual units in Langacker’s (1987) cognitive grammar. Thus, verbs of MOTION at the highest level would include WALK, RUN, LEAVE, SWIM, SKI, DRIVE, and many others, at the basic level, as well as many additional ones at the subordinate level. Clearly, such thematic groups are numerous in the conceptual system, and they provide a wide range of potential themes, or topics, in the conceptual

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universe of conceptualizers (speakers). However, it is also clear that the “entity system” is closely connected with the “relation system.” After all, users of conceptual systems want to conceptualize such situations as the motion (relation system) of vehicles (entity system). This means that the system must allow for an organization of concepts other than the thematic groups in the form of hierarchical taxonomies. HORIZONTAL ORGANIZATION OF THE SYSTEM: FRAMES

In addition to their vertical, or hierarchical, organization, concepts are organized “horizontally” into frames, or domains. The horizontal organization of concepts in the form of frames, or domains, may cross-cut several dimensions (entity-relation) and thematic groups. The most explicit proposal to this effect in cognitive linguistics was made by Langacker (e.g., 1987, 2008). As noted earlier, the notion of frame came into cognitive linguistics through Fillmore’s work, who views frames as organized assemblies of concepts (from different thematic groups) corresponding to coherent organizations of experience (Fillmore, 1982). This idea was further developed by Lakoff (1987) into “idealized cognitive models,” or “ICMs,” and especially by Langacker (1987), who suggests that a concept represented by a frame evokes several additional frames, or, as Langacker prefers to call them, “domains.” Such domains constitute the “domain matrix” of a concept. Let us consider the concept of EMOTION as an example (Kövecses, 2000). The schematic frame for EMOTION can be given as follows:

Cause → Emotion (Person) (Person) → Action (Person)

→ Attempt

at Control over Emotion

This is a language-based folk theory of emotion (i.e., not an expert theory), in which a situation (Cause) causes a person to be in an emotional state that manifests itself in a variety of ways (Emotion), and the person tries to control the emotion (Control) but eventually performs an action related to the emotion (Action). In it, a situation is conceptualized as a forceful entity that leads to the emotion and the emotion itself is conceptualized as another forceful entity that produces some kind of action or set of actions. (On force dynamics in general, see Talmy, 1988.) In other words, the conceptualization of emotions relies on one of our most fundamental image schemas: the FORCE schema, in which two forceful entities are in interaction. The schema applies twice in the case of emotion: a cause (one forceful entity) affecting a person (another forceful entity) as a result of which emotion comes about, on the one hand, and emotion (one forceful entity) affecting the same person (another forceful entity) who tries to control it as a result of which actions are produced, on the other. Thus, the most fundamental component of our understanding of emotion is


this force-dynamic pattern that derives from our early preconceptual experience and that is constantly reinforced in our everyday living. But the schema is much too general and it underlies many domains of experience, not only emotion. It therefore needs to be made more specific. This is exactly the function of the more specific EMOTION frame. Given the more specific frame, emotion can be defined as a set of feelings and responses caused by a particular situation or, alternatively, as a set of feelings and responses producing some actions by a person who is in a state characterized by such feelings and responses. In other words, the concept of EMOTION can be defined only relative to the frame and the other elements that the frame contains. Each and every element in the frame can be profiled (focused on) and defined in a similar way by making use of the other elements in the frame. But the concept of EMOTION so defined evokes a large number of additional concepts in the conceptual system. Because emotions often arise in social situations, the concept evokes the notions of SOCIETY itself, SOCIAL RELATIONS, and SOCIAL NORMS. Because emotions are commonly displayed through bodily behavior, it evokes the HUMAN BODY and ITS FUNCTIONING. Because emotions are commonly based on moral ideas, it evokes notions of RIGHT or WRONG, APPROPRIATENESS OF RESPONSE and the APPROPRIATE MEASURE OF FEELING, and MUTUALITY or a lack of it. Because emotions can be feigned, it can evoke the concepts of TRUTH, SINCERITY (of feeling), and GENUINENESS. Some of these are more easily and commonly evoked, or activated, than others when people conceptualize and discuss their emotional experiences. For example, the body, including bodily responses, and the appropriateness of responses seem to be more closely tied with the concept of EMOTION than, say, issues of truth and sincerity in emotion. It thus appears that concepts in the domain matrix of emotion can be more or less central, but at the same time contextual influence may override any statistically valid association between emotion-related concepts. In sum, the concept of EMOTION serves as a good example to show the most essential structures that participate in the organization of a conceptual system. At the most fundamental level, we have extremely general image schemas that support higher level structures. In the case of the concept of EMOTION, this is the FORCE DYNAMIC image schema. This schema supports the much more specific (but still fairly generic) EMOTION frame, or, to put it differently, the EMOTION frame is a specific instance of the FORCE image schema. The frame itself is embedded in a domain matrix, including a variety of concepts from a variety of additional hierarchical taxonomies and frames. Some of the concepts in the matrix are more central than others, but their centrality can vary with particular contexts. Finally, at the most superficial level of organization, a concept is profiled against a frame, relative to the other elements within the same frame.

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Where Metaphors Come From Links in the System

The various constituents of the conceptual system (frames, elements of frames, elements of vertical hierarchies) can be connected to each other in a number of ways. Of these, I mention three essential types of connections, but discuss only the latter two in the remainder of the chapter: ¤ “is-connection”: By means of this type of connection conceptualizers identify a concept (entity) with another in different frames or mental spaces. ¤ “through-connection”: By means of this type of connection conceptualizers provide access to a concept (entity) through another within the same frame. ¤ “as-if-connection”: By means of this type of connection conceptualizers conceive of a frame or an element of a frame in terms of another frame or element. IS-CONNECTION: IDENTITY

The first type of connection, “is-connection,” is identification or identity relation (see Fauconnier, 1997). It is a connection by means of which conceptualizers identify a concept or entity with another or they categorize one concept or entity as another. The processes of identification and categorization occur primarily in discourse. THROUGH-CONNECTION: METONYMY

The second type of connection, “through-connection,” is what is called metonymy (see, e.g., Kövecses and Radden, 1998; Radden and Kövecses, 1999; Barcelona, 2000; Barcelona, Benczes, and Ruiz de Mendoza, 2011). Metonymy also primarily occurs in novel forms in discourse, but it can also be found in a conventionalized form in the conceptual system (in long-term memory). AS IF-CONNECTION: METAPHOR

The third type of connection, “as-if-connection,” is what is known as meta phor (see, e.g., Lakoff and Johnson, 1980, 1999; Gibbs, 1994). Metaphor also occurs both in discourse and in the conventional conceptual system in the form of conventionalized mappings, or correspondences. My discussion of metaphor here is limited to conventional connections between parts of the conceptual system. (On the process of conventionalization in metaphor, see Gentner and Bowdle, 2008, and on metaphor in discourse, see Kövecses, 2010a and Deignan, 2012).


As regards metonymy and metaphor in the conventional conceptual system, they seem to share two properties. One is that they both occur at various levels of schematicity. The other is that they are not domain specific. SCHEMATICITY OF METAPHOR AND METONYMY

Consider first the issue of schematicity. Some metaphors can be found at a very high level of schematicity (cf. Ruiz de Mendoza and Mairal, 2007). One example of such metaphor is EMOTION IS A FORCE, as discussed previously. Both the concepts of EMOTION and FORCE are generic-level ones. At even a higher level we find cases of metaphor such as EVENTS ARE ACTIONS. Both of these metaphors can occur at a more specific level in the form of more specific metaphors. EMOTION IS FORCE can be instantiated at a more specific level as ANGER IS A HOT FLUID IN A CONTAINER or ROMANTIC LOVE IS A NATURAL FORCE. Still more specific would be ANGER IS A STEW (e.g., be stewing ) for anger and ROMANTIC LOVE IS A WHIRLWIND (e.g., a whirlwind romance) for love. More specific versions of EVENTS ARE ACTIONS include BIRTH IS ARRIVAL and DEATH IS DEPARTURE. (“He departed ” for dying as an event.) Thus we have: EMOTION IS A FORCE ANGER IS A HOT FLUID IN A CONTAINER — ROMANTIC LOVE IS A NATURAL FORCE ANGER IS A STEW — ROMANTIC LOVE IS A WHIRLWIND EVENTS ARE ACTIONS BIRTH IS ARRIVAL — DEATH IS DEPARTURE

The same applies to metonymies. A very common conceptualization of causes in general occurs through the effects that the causes produce, resulting in the metonymy EFFECTS FOR CAUSES. This is a high-level, schematic metonymy. One less schematic version of it is THE EFFECT OF AN EMOTION FOR THE EMOTION. This in effect states that we often conceptualize emotions through the responses emotions produce. Thus, a specific-level version of the metonymy is BODY HEAT FOR ANGER (“He’s a hothead ”), COLDNESS IN THE BODY FOR FEAR (“ She got cold feet”), and HOLDING THE HEAD HIGH FOR PRIDE (“He is stuck up”). This yields the hierarchy below: EFFECTS FOR CAUSES THE EFFECT OF AN EMOTION FOR THE EMOTION BODY HEAT FOR ANGER — COLDNESS IN THE BODY FOR FEAR — HOLDING THE HEAD HIGH FOR PRIDE

NONSPECIFICITY OF METAPHOR AND METONYMY

Another property of such metaphors and metonymies in the conventional conceptual system is that they are not tied to a specific domain—either a vertical

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hierarchy of concepts defining a thematic group or a functional domain, or frame. More specifically, my suggestion is that particular source concepts (either metaphoric or metonymic) are not specific to particular target concepts. Take the OPPONENT source concept for EMOTION as a target. Given the EMOTIONS ARE OPPONENTS metaphor, we can talk about struggling with our emotions, but we can also talk about struggling with an illness, a problem, a task, mathematics, learning a foreign language, the snow, and many others. This means that the OPPONENT source concept is not limited to any specific domain; instead, it is a metaphor with a wide scope (Kövecses 2002/2010a, 2005). The wide scope of the source OPPONENT defines a more schematic target than any one of the particular domains to which it applies. Thus, the more appropriate way to conceive of these metaphors is that the OPPONENT source concept goes together with a more abstract target than EMOTION, and so forth; it would be something like the target concept of DIFFICULTIES (IN GENERAL), resulting in the schematic metaphor DIFFICULTIES ARE OPPONENTS. In other words, such schematic metaphors range through the entire conceptual system, applicable wherever a concept involves the notion of DIFFICULTY (CONTROLLING SOMETHING).

Conclusions

Barsalou (1999) describes a number of tasks that the human conceptual system must be capable of performing. These include providing a complete mental representation of immediately accessible experience, allowing for the representation of nonimmediate experience, being accessible to a large number of its users, making sense of the world, enabling making inferences from the representations used, and allowing for productivity and creativity. How can human conceptual systems accomplish these tasks, and what is the human conceptual system like that can perform these functions? In responding to these questions, Barsalou notes that there are several affinities between his proposed model (perceptual symbol systems) and notions of conceptual structure suggested by cognitive linguists. Following Barsalou’s lead, in this chapter I attempted to characterize a possible model of the conceptual system along the lines of some foundational work in cognitive linguistics and psychology, and my own research on metaphor, metonymy, and emotion concepts. What are the properties of concepts that participate in performing the tasks of a conceptual system mentioned by Barsalou? In the modal, perceptual, or experientialist model of the conceptual system as developed in the chapter, concepts are embodied, prototype based, schematic, frame based, and linguistically coded. There are essentially two kinds of concepts that make up a conceptual system: concrete and abstract. Given this distinction, experientialist theories of conceptual systems have a problem: If abstract concepts are not based on


perceptual experience, they cannot be embodied, and if they are not embodied, we cannot have a fully perceptual, modal, or experientialist model for conceptual systems either. Thinking about abstract concepts in a new, nontraditional way helped us resolve the apparent contradiction. Three ways of creating abstract concepts (abstraction, metaphor, subjectivity) were examined. Abstract concepts resulting from all three cases were shown to be based on perceptual experience, that is, to be embodied. This characterization of the concepts making up the conceptual system also determines some of the general properties of the system. Overall features of the conceptual system include that it is embodied, schematic, imagistic, partly arbitrary, and hierarchical. The hierarchical nature of the system defines a large number of thematic groups. Such thematic groups provide a wide range of potential themes, or topics, in the conceptual universe of conceptualizers (speakers). There is also further organizational structure in the system. In addition to their vertical, or hierarchical, organization, concepts are organized “horizontally” into frames, or domains. The horizontal organization of concepts in the form of frames, or domains, may cross-cut several dimensions and thematic groups. The examination of the concept of EMOTION revealed that the most fundamental level of meaning making, or meaning construction, is the level of general image schemas. Such schemas support higher level structures. These structures constitute more specific (but still fairly generic) frames (such as EMOTION) that function as specific instances of image schemas (such as FORCE). The frame itself is embedded in a domain matrix that includes a variety of concepts from a variety of additional hierarchical taxonomies and frames. Some of the concepts in the matrix are more central than others. At the most superficial level of organization, a concept (such as the ANGRY PERSON or LOVER) is profiled against the frame (such as the one for ANGER or LOVE or EMOTION in general). The various constituents of the conceptual system (frames, elements of frames, elements of vertical hierarchies) can be connected to each other in a number of ways. In this chapter, I mentioned three essential types: “isconnections” corresponding to identity relations, “through-connections” corresponding to metonymy, and “as-if-connections” corresponding to metaphor. As we will see in Chapter 5, this way of thinking about the conceptual system will enable us to view culture, in one sense, as the context for metaphorical conceptualization. The conceptual-system-as-context may be the default case, owing to its frequent application, in the production of metaphors. In addition, I suggest in the chapter on humor (Chapter 8) that the conceptual system as conceived in the present chapter contains (or can be made to contain) concepts with opposing values, which provide much of the necessary background for the understanding of humor in language and at large.

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Finally, it was important to introduce this vision of the conceptual system to be able to show that the conceptual system is not exhausted by a stable “representational” system of concepts. As we will see in later chapters (especially Chapters 4, 6, and 7), the conceptual system relies heavily on the environment of communication, and, in the course of interacting with the environment, it draws a large portion of its conceptual materials from it. This seems especially true in the case of metaphorical conceptualization, as I argue in the final chapter.

4

Contextual Factors

The issue of context has been, in the main, neglected in cognitive linguistic and much other work on how conceptual systems change and vary. In most recent work on conceptual systems, the issues of embodied cognition and the universal nature of cognitive operations have been emphasized. By contrast, my major goal in the chapter and in this book is to characterize some of the contextual factors that are involved in shaping the conceptual system. My focus is on metaphorical concepts, as well as on the interaction between metaphorical aspects of the conceptual system and contextual factors. I propose that in many cases metaphorical concepts do not arise from prestored mappings in the conventional conceptual system, as is often assumed in the cognitive linguistic literature on metaphor, but result from the priming effect of contextual factors in real situations of discourse on the human mind to establish metaphors. I begin to explore this issue in the present chapter, and continue the discussion in Chapters 6 and 7, where I in addition focus on the closely related topic of metaphorical creativity.

Cognitive Operations, Embodiment, and Context

The cognitive operations at our disposal produce a particular conceptual system informed by and based on embodiment. But conceptual systems emerge as a result of contextual factors as well. Both the cognitive operations and the conceptual systems function under the pressure of a vast range of contextual factors. Simply put, the cognitive operations and the resulting conceptual systems function in context. The conceptual system and the context in which it emerges are in continuous interaction. As the conceptual system is influenced by the context, it changes, and as a result of this change, it is this modified conceptual system that is used in the next application of the system.

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The cognitive operations we use are universal in the sense that all (cognitively normal) human beings are capable of performing them. Much of the embodiment on which conceptual systems are based is universal (but see Casasanto, 2009 and Chapter 5). Despite the universality of the operations and that of embodiment, the conceptual systems vary considerably both cross-culturally and within cultures, with individual variation as a limiting case. This is possible because the contexts are variable and in different contexts people often use differential operations. In addition, the prominence of certain cognitive operations may be greater or smaller across groups of people. The changeability of contexts and that of cognitive operations as affected by differential contexts leads to differential conceptual systems. Although I fully recognize the importance of universal embodiment in our conceptual system and that of the universal availability of cognitive operations, it seems to me that much of the work on (the metaphorical aspects of) conceptual systems does not pay sufficient attention to the role of contextual factors in shaping what we know and how we think about the world. My major goal in this chapter is to attempt to characterize some of the contextual factors that are involved in this process and to show one possible way in which it can happen. My focus will be on metaphorical concepts and on the interaction between metaphorical aspects of the conceptual system and contextual factors.

Universality in Human Knowledge

As we saw in Chapter 1, many of our most elementary experiences are universal. Being in a container, walking along a path, resisting some physical force, being in the dark, and so forth, are universal experiences that lead to image schemas of various kinds (Johnson, 1987; Lakoff, 1987). The resulting image schemas (CONTAINER, SOURCE – PATH – GOAL, FORCE, etc.) provide meaning for much of our experience either directly (for literal concepts) or indirectly (in the form of conceptual metaphors). Conceptual metaphors may also receive their bodily motivation from certain universal correlations in experience, when, for instance, people see a correlation between two events (such as adding to the content of a container and the level of the substance rising), leading to the metaphor MORE IS UP (see Lakoff and Johnson, 1980; Lakoff, 1987). When meaning making is based on such elementary human experiences, the result may be (near-)universal meaning (content)—though under a particular interpretation (construal), that is, conceived of “in a certain manner,” to use Hoyt Alverson’s phrase (Alverson, 1991: 97). I assume that universal embodied experiences of this kind constitute a major factor in shaping the conceptual system. This does not mean that all embodied experiences actually shape concepts, but that they can potentially do so. When universal embodied experiences affect the system in some way, they contribute to establishing the universal aspects of the conceptual system.

Contextual Factors

Context in Human Knowledge

In addition to (universal) embodied experience, another major factor in shaping the conceptual system is context. The significance of context in shaping the conceptual system is also noted by Barsalou, who states: Variable embodiment allows individuals to adapt the perceptual symbols in their conceptual system to specific environments. Imagine that different individuals consume somewhat different varieties of the same plants because they live in different locales. Through perceiving their respective foods, different individuals develop somewhat different perceptual symbols to represent them. As a result, somewhat different conceptual systems develop through the schematic symbol formation process, each tuned optimally to its typical referents. (Barsalou, 1999: 598) Here Barsalou talks about “different locales,” a kind of context that, following Kövecses (2005, 2010b), I will call the “physical environment.” As we will see later, in addition to the physical environment, I recognize the influence of several other contextual factors. I use the term “context” very broadly, to include both the linguistic and the nonlinguistic context. As noted in Chapter 1, I propose that both universal embodiment and nonuniversal context affect the way people conceptualize the world in real communicative/discourse situations. I call this influence, following Kövecses (2005), the “pressure of coherence.” This is a principle that states, in effect, that conceptualizers are under two kinds of pressure when they conceptualize the world. Conceptualizers try to be coherent both with their bodies (their basic embodied experiences) and their contexts (the various contextual factors), where the body and context function as, sometimes conflicting, forms of constraint on conceptualization. The outcome of the two pressures depends on which influence, or pressure, turns out to be stronger in particular situations. With a conventional conceptual system in place and with the help of cognitive operations, we conceptualize aspects of the world. In the course of this conceptualization, the conceptual system is constantly modified and changed. Changes can be effected in the already existing conceptual system in essentially two ways. One is alternative construal, that is, the alternative application of particular cognitive operations (e.g., metaphor vs. metonymy). The other is differential experience (see later), which means that the various contextual factors constantly influence the way we conceptualize the world. Since the contextual factors change all the time, the conceptual system changes with them. Some of the work on nonmetaphorical concepts in cognitive linguistics can be interpreted as recognizing the importance of this interplay. Work on the differential salience of conceptual categories along the lines of Rosch (1978) and Lakoff (1987), on culturally significant concepts, such as HARA in Japanese (Matsuki, 1995) and QI in Chinese (Yu, 1998), on the differential representation

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of categories in different contexts (Langacker, 1987; Barsalou, 1992), and on mental spaces (Fauconnier, 1985/1994, 1997) can all be considered as instances of this type of work.

Three Issues Concerning Variation in Metaphorical Conceptualization

Cognitive linguists have, in general, paid more attention to the role of the body than that of context in the creation of conceptual metaphors, supporting the view of embodied cognition. In my own work, I attempted to redress the balance by focusing on what I take to be the equally important role of the context (Kövecses, 2005). In particular, I suggested that there are a number of questions we have to deal with in order to arrive at a reasonable theory of metaphor variation. The questions are as follows: What are the dimensions of metaphor variation? What are the aspects of conceptual metaphors that are involved in variation? What are the causes of metaphor variation? The first question has to do with “where” metaphor variation can be found. My survey of variation in conceptual metaphors indicated that variation is most likely to occur cross-culturally, within-culture, or individually, as well as historically and developmentally. I called these the “dimensions” of metaphor variation. Conceptual metaphors tend to vary along these dimensions. The second question assumes that conceptual metaphors have a number of different aspects, or components, including the following: source domain, target domain, experiential basis, relationship between the source and target, metaphorical linguistic expressions, mappings, entailments (inferences), nonlinguistic realizations, blends, and cultural models. These either produce metaphor variation (e.g., blends) or are affected by it (e.g., source domain, metaphorical linguistic expressions, entailments). The third question is the crucial one as regards the role of context in metaphorical conceptualization. It asks what the factors, or “forces,” are that are responsible for variation in conceptual metaphors. I proposed two distinct, though interlocking, groups of factors: differential experience and differential cognitive styles. I found it convenient to distinguish various subcases of differential experience: awareness of context, differential memory, and differential concerns and interests. Awareness of context includes awareness of the physical context, social context, cultural context, but also awareness of the immediate communicative situation. Differential memory is the memory of events and objects shared by a community or of a single individual; we can think of it as the history of a group or that of an individual. Differential concerns and interests can also characterize

Contextual Factors

either groups or individuals. It is the general attitude with which groups or individuals act or are predisposed to act in the world. Differential experience, thus, characterizes both groups and individuals, and, as context, it ranges from global to local. The global context is the general knowledge that the whole group shares and that, as a result, affects all group members in using metaphors. The local context is the specific knowledge that pertains to a specific situation involving particular individuals. More generally, it can be suggested that the global context is essentially a shared system of concepts in long-term memory (reflected in conventional linguistic usage), whereas the local context is the situation in which particular individuals conceptualize a specific situation making use of working memory. (I discuss the global–local distinction further in Chapters 5 and 6.) By contrast, the cognitive processes, discussed in Chapter 2, such as elaboration, specificity, conventionalization, transparency, (experiential) focus, viewpoint preference, prototype categorization, framing, metaphor vs. metonymy preference, and others, though universally available to all humans, are not employed in the same way by groups or individuals. Since the cognitive processes used can vary, there can be variation in the use of metaphors as well. In sum, the two large groups of causes, differential experience and differential cognitive styles, account for much of the variation we find in the use of conceptual metaphors. However, it is only differential experience that can prime, or prompt, the use of particular conceptual and linguistic metaphors. The various cognitive operations that make up the characteristic cognitive styles of either individuals or groups can merely constrain them. For this reason, the survey that follows is limited to the influence of differential experience on metaphor creation and variation.

A Survey of Contextual Factors Affecting Metaphor Use

Let us now review how the contextual factors that constitute differential experience mentioned earlier can influence the creation of metaphors in particular communicative situations. KNOWLEDGE ABOUT THE MAIN ELEMENTS OF THE DISCOURSE

The main elements of discourse include the speaker/conceptualizer 1, topic/ theme of discourse, and hearer/addressee/conceptualizer 2. Knowledge about any one of these may lead to the use of metaphors that are specific to a particular discourse situation. Consider the following example that involves the topic of discourse—a long article about cyclist Lance Armstrong in the January 25–27 issue of the American newspaper USA TODAY . The article is about Armstrong’s confessions concerning his doping and that his confessions up to that point had not

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been sufficient to redeem himself and clean up the sport of cycling. Several experts who were interviewed thought that additional steps must be taken by Armstrong to achieve this. One specialist in crisis management said this in an interview: “To use an analogy from the Tour de France, he’s still in the mountain stage, and will be for some time” ( USA TODAY , 6W Sports, Weekly International Edition, 2013). What we have here is that the specialist has extensive knowledge about the topic of the discourse, which is Armstrong’s doping scandal. That knowledge includes that as a cyclist Armstrong participated in several Tour de France events and that this race has several “mountain stages.” In other words, the topic of the discourse primed the speaker to choose a metaphor to express a particular idea, namely, that, to come completely clean, Armstrong has a long and difficult way to go. This idea was expressed by the mountain stage metaphor, which is based on the mapping “impediment to motion → difficulty of action (making full confession and being forgiven)” in the ACTION IS MOTION conceptual metaphor. SURROUNDING DISCOURSE

Sometimes it is the surrounding linguistic context (i.e., what comes before and after a particular unit of discourse) that influences the choice of metaphors, as in the sentence “The Americanization of Japanese car industry shifts into higher gear,” analyzed by Kövecses (2005). The expression shift into higher gear is used because the immediate linguistic context involves the “car industry.” PREVIOUS DISCOURSES ON THE SAME TOPIC

Given a particular topic, a range of conceptual metaphors can be set up. Such metaphors, that is, metaphorical source domains, often lead to new or modified source domains in the continuation of the debate involving the topic by, for example, offering a new or modified source domain relative to one of the former ones. This commonly occurs in scientific discussion (for examples, see Nerlich, 2007) and can lead to the establishment of a chain of related metaphorical source domains for a target. However, often we are not aware of potential further “usurpations” of the metaphor against our original intentions. This situation has its dangers and can be the source of other people turning a metaphor against us in a debate over contentious issues. A particularly apt illustration of this happening is provided by Elena Semino (2008). Tony Blair used the following metaphor in one of his speeches: Get rid of the false choice: principles or no principles. Replace it with the true choice. Forward or back. I can only go one way. I’ve not got a reverse gear. The time to trust a politician most is not when they’re taking the easy

Contextual Factors

option. Any politician can do the popular things. I know, I used to do a few of them. Obviously, Blair tries to present himself here as a forward-looking politician who has clear and, what he takes to be, progressive goals and wants to reach those goals. In setting up this image, he uses the conventional conceptual metaphors PROGRESS IS MOTION FORWARD and PURPOSEFUL ACTIVITIES ARE JOURNEYS, but he also employs a little trick to achieve this: he portrays himself as a car without a reverse gear. In the same way as a car without a reverse gear cannot move backward, only forward, he, the politician, can only move forward, that is, can only do things in the name of progress. That is, he uses knowledge about the target domains to effect changes in the source domain that he employs to achieve his rhetorical purpose in the situation. (This example could also be analyzed as a case of conceptual integration, a la Fauconnier and Turner, 2002.) As a result, we have in the source domain a car without a reverse gear that cannot move backward, only forward, and we have in the target a politician who can and wants to achieve progressive goals alone. However, the source image can be modified somewhat. Let us suppose that the car gets to the edge of a cliff. Wouldn’t it be good to have a reverse gear then? Semino (2008) found an example where this is precisely what happens. Following the speech in which Blair used the “car without reverse gear” image, an anchorman on BBC evening news remarked: but when you’re on the edge of a cliff it is good to have a reverse gear. The “edge of a cliff” in the source symbolizes an especially difficult and dangerous situation, where it is a good thing to have a car with a reverse gear. In the target, the dangerous situation corresponds to the Iraqi war, where, in the view of the journalist and others, it would have been good for Blair to change his views and withdraw from the war, instead of “plunging” the country into it. In other words, as Semino points out, a metaphor that a speaker introduces and that can initially be seen as serving the speaker’s interests in persuading others can be slightly but significantly changed. With the change, the metaphor can be turned against the original user. This often happens in political debates.

DOMINANT FORMS OF DISCOURSE AND INTERTEXTUALITY

It is common practice that a particular metaphor in one dominant form of discourse is recycled in other discourses. One example is Biblical discourse. Biblical metaphors are often recycled in later discourses assigning new values to the later versions. In some cases of intertextuality, intertextual coherence is achieved through inheriting and using a particular conceptual metaphor at different historical periods. One of the best examples of this is how several biblical metaphors have

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been recycled over the ages. As an example, let us take a bookmark I was given in Durham cathedral a few years ago with the following text on it (the example is first discussed in Kövecses, 2010a): Almighty God Who called your servant Cuthbert from keeping sheep to follow your son and to be shepherd of your people. Mercifully grant that we, following his example and caring for those who are lost, may bring them home to your fold. Through your son. Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

In the prayer, the basic conceptual metaphor is the one in which the shepherd is Jesus, the lost sheep are the people who no longer follow God’s teachings, the fold of the sheep is people’s home with God, and for the shepherd to bring the sheep back to the fold is for Jesus to save the people. We can lay out these correspondences, or mappings, more explicitly as follows: Source: the shepherd the lost sheep the fold of the sheep the shepherd bringing back the sheep

→ → → →

Target: Jesus the people who do not follow God the state of people following God Jesus saving the people

This metaphor was reused later on when God called a simple man, called Cuthbert, to give up his job (which, significantly, was being a shepherd) and become a “shepherd of people.” Here it is Cuthbert (not Jesus) who saves the lost people (a set of people different from the ones in Jesus’ times). Finally, in the most recent recycling of the metaphor in the prayer said on St. Cuthbert’s day, 20 March, 2007, the particular values of the metaphor change again. It is the priests who live today who try to bring people back to the fold—again, a set of people different from either those who lived in Jesus’ or Cuthbert’s times. This type of intertextuality characterizes not only Christianity (and other religions) through time but many other domains within the same historical period. Thus a metaphor can provide coherence across a variety of discourses both historically and simultaneously. IDEOLOGY UNDERLYING DISCOURSE

Ideology underlying a piece of discourse can determine the metaphors that are used. Goatly’s work (see, especially, 2007) shows that different ideologies can

Contextual Factors

lead to the use of different metaphors relating to the same subject matter. I discuss an example in a later section of the chapter.

PHYSICAL ENVIRONMENT

This is the physical environment, or setting, in which a communicative exchange takes place. The physical setting includes the physical circumstances, viewing arrangement, salient properties of the environment, and so on. These aspects of the physical environment can influence the choice of metaphors. As an illustration, let us see how the perceptual qualities characteristic of a physical setting can have an effect on the creation and use of unconventional metaphorical expressions. In her 2008 book, Semino has an interesting example that bears on this issue. Semino analyzes the metaphors used by various participants at the 2005 G8 summit meeting in Scotland on the basis of an article about the summit. In conjunction with the summit a major rock concert called Live 8 was also held. Some participants assessed what the G8 summit had achieved positively, whereas some had doubts concerning its results. Semino has this to say about one such negative assessment she found in the article reporting on the summit: In contrast, a representative of an anti-poverty group is quoted as negatively assessing the G8 summit in comparison with the Live 8 concert via a metaphor to do with sound: 1.1 Dr Kumi Naidoo, from the anti-poverty lobby group G-Cap, said after “the roar” produced by Live 8, the G8 had uttered “a whisper.” The reference to ‘roar’ could be a nonmetaphorical description of the sound made by the crowd at the concert. However, the use of ‘whisper’ in relation to the summit is clearly a (negative) metaphorical description of the outcome of the discussions in terms of a sound characterized by lack of loudness. Hence, the contrast in loudness between the sounds indicated by ‘roar’ and ‘whisper’ is used metaphorically to establish a contrast between the strength of feeling and commitment expressed by the concert audiences and the lack of resolve and effectiveness shown by the G8 leaders. Although in general I agree with this account of the metaphor used, I would also add that the metaphor arises from the physical(-social) context in which it is produced. Dr. Kumi Naidoo creates the metaphor whisper against a background in which there is a very loud concert and a comparatively quiet summit meeting. We can think of the loudness and the relative quiet of the occasion as perceptual features of the two events. In other words, I would suggest that the particular metaphor derives from some of the perceptual features that characterize the physical(-social) setting.

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As Semino points out, whisper is clearly metaphorical. It is informative to look at how it acquires its metaphorical meaning. How can it mean ‘the lack of resolve and effectiveness,’ as proposed by Semino? Or, to put the question differently, why do we have the sense that this is indeed the intended meaning of the metaphor? After all, “whisper” and “lack of resolve and effectiveness” appear to be fairly different and distant notions. What is the conceptual pathway that can take us from “whisper” to “lack of resolve and effectiveness”? My suggestion is that the pathway is made up of a number of conceptual metaphors and metonymies that function at various levels of schematicity. First, there is the highly generic metaphor INTENSITY IS STRENGTH OF EFFECT. Second, a metonymy that is involved is the more specific EMOTIONAL RESPONSES FOR THE EMOTIONS. Third, we have the even more specific metonymy ANGRY BEHAVIOR FOR ANGER/ARGUMENT. Finally, there is the metonymy that connects emotions with actions: EMOTION FOR DETERMINATION TO ACT. My claim is that we need each of these metaphors and metonymies to be able to account for the meaning of the word whisper in the example. In all this the INTENSITY IS STRENGTH OF EFFECT metaphor is especially important, in that it provides us with the connection between the degree of the loudness of the verbal behavior and the intensity of the determination, or resolve, to act. Since whisper is low on the degree of verbal intensity, it will indicate a low degree of intensity of resolve, hence the meaning of whisper: “lack of resolve (and effectiveness).” Given these metaphors and metonymies in our conceptual system, we find it natural that whisper can have this meaning. In light of this analysis, the verb roar is not less but more metaphorical than whisper. We can account for the meaning of roar (i.e., “strength of feeling and commitment”) by making use of the same metaphors and metonymies, except that the metaphors and metonymies take on the opposite values for roar. In addition, we will also need a metaphor that applies to roar but does not apply to whisper: ANGRY BEHAVIOR IS ANGRY ANIMAL BEHAVIOR. The basic meaning of roar is the sound of an animal (like a lion). The metaphor does not apply to whisper because whisper is characteristically produced by humans. In other words, contrary to Semino’s suggestion, we find roar not less but more metaphorical than whisper. But the main conclusion from this analysis is that features of the physical setting can trigger the use of certain metaphoric and metonymic expressions. No matter how distant the literal and the figurative meanings are from one another, we can construct and reconstruct the appropriate conceptual pathways that provide a sensible link between the two. In the present example, the original conceptualizer, then the journalist who reported on the event, and finally the analysts of the discourse produced by the previous two can all figure out what the intended meanings of the words whisper and roar probably are or can be, given our shared conceptualization of (some of the perceptual qualities of) the physical context.

Contextual Factors

SOCIAL SITUATION

Social aspects of the setting can involve such distinctions as man vs. woman, power relations in society, conceptions of work, and many others. They can all play a role in which metaphors are used in the course of metaphorical conceptualization. (For examples, see Kövecses, 2005 and Chapter 6.) CULTURAL SITUATION

The cultural factors that affect metaphorical conceptualization include the dominant values and characteristics of members of a group, the key ideas or concepts that govern their lives, the various subgroups that make up the group, the various products of culture such as TV shows and films, and a large number of other things. All of these cultural aspects of the setting can supply members of the group with a variety of metaphorical source domains. I discuss a number of examples in several later chapters (see Kövecses, 2005 and Chapter 6). HISTORY

By history I mean the memory of events and objects in members of a group. Such memories can be used to create highly conventional metaphors (e.g., in the metaphorical idiom carry coal to Newcastle) or they can be used to understand situations in novel ways. (For more discussion and examples, see Kövecses, 2005 and Chapter 6.) INTERESTS AND CONCERNS

Individuals and groups may be characterized by some major interests and concerns in the way they conduct their lives. Either individuals or groups may be dedicated to particular activities, rather than others. The commonly and habitually pursued activities (of either groups or individuals) become metaphorical source domains more readily than those that are marginal. (For an example for this kind of influence, see Chapter 6.) These are some of the contextual factors that do seem to play a role in shaping metaphorical conceptualization, more specifically, in creating (often novel) metaphors. Most of the time the factors do not function by themselves; instead, they exert their influence on the conceptualization process jointly. Several of the factors listed above can simultaneously influence the use of metaphors (see Chapters 6 and 7). I now turn to the analysis of the concept of SELF to see how one of the contextual factors mentioned previously, ideology, may influence its conceptualization. The examination of this example will lead to a need to reconsider and refine the view presented so far concerning the influence of context on metaphor creation.

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Where Metaphors Come From Ideology as Context: A Complication in the Context–Metaphor Relationship

In the cognitive linguistic view, a concept is assumed to be represented in the mind by a number of other concepts that form a coherent whole, a functional domain, that is, a mental frame. In other cases, however, a number of concepts can hang together in a coherent fashion without forming a tight frame-like structure. This happens in the case of worldviews or ideologies, where a number of concepts occur together forming a loose network of ideas. Such loose networks of ideas can govern the way we think and talk about several aspects of the world, and how we act in it. As an example, consider the concept of the SELF, as it is used in western societies. I distinguish between an analysis of the internal structure of this concept from an analysis in terms of its external relations to other concepts. A perceptive study of the internal structure of the self in western societies is Wolf (1994). The study that follows investigates the external relations of the concept. Here is a definition by Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self): The self is an individual person as the object of his or her own reflective consciousness. We commonly refer to the self with the words I and me in English. These words represent different aspects of the self—the subjective knower and the object that is known (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self). The concept of the SELF seems to be a universal and it is also lexicalized in probably all languages of the world. How universal might the metaphorical conceptualization of the SELF be? If we look at some of metaphorical linguistic examples, one can easily be led to believe that what we have here is a unique—an English or a Western— metaphor system of the self, or more generally, inner life. Linguistic examples in (American) English, like hanging out with oneself, being out to lunch, being on cloud nine, pampering oneself, etc. might suggest that the conceptual metaphors that underlie these examples are culture-specific conceptual metaphors. But they are not. As it turns out, the same conceptual metaphors that underlie such expressions show up in cultures where one would not expect them. Lakoff and Johnson (1999) report that the metaphor system can be found in Japanese. Moreover, many of the examples translate readily into Hungarian as well, which indicates that the system is not alien to speakers of Hungarian either (see Kövecses, 2005). In the text that follows I provide linguistic examples for some conceptual metaphors identified by Lakoff and Johnson for English in both Japanese and Hungarian. The Japanese examples come from Lakoff and Johnson (1999: 284–287). The PHYSICAL-OBJECT SELF metaphor JAPANESE: SELF-CONTROL IS OBJECT POSSESSION

Contextual Factors

Kare-wa dokusyo-ni ware-o wasure-ta. He-TOP reading-LOC self-ACC lose[forget]-PAST Lit.: “He lost self reading.” “He lost himself in reading.” HUNGARIAN: BODY CONTROL IS THE FORCED MOVEMENT OF AN OBJECT

Alig tudtam elvonszolni magam a kórházig. Hardly could carry-with-difficulty myself the hospital-to. “I could hardly make it to the hospital.” SELF-CONTROL IS OBJECT POSSESSION

Teljesen eleresztette magát. Completely let-go-PAST herself “She let it all hang out.” The LOCATIONAL SELF metaphor JAPANESE: THE SCATTERED SELF metaphor ATTENTIONAL SELF-CONTROL IS HAVING THE SELF TOGETHER

Kare-wa ki-o hiki-sime-ta. He-TOP spirit-ACC pull-tighten-PAST Lit.: “He pulled-and-tightened his spirits.” “He pulled himself together.” The OBJECTIVE STANDPOINT metaphor Zibun-no kara-kara de-te, zibun-o yoku mitume-ru koto-ga taisetu da. Self-GEN shell-from get out-CONJ self-ACC well stare-PRES COMP-NOM important COP Lit.: “To get out of self’s shell and stare at self well is important.” “It is important to get out of yourself and look at yourself well.” HUNGARIAN: THE SELF AS CONTAINER

Magamon kivül voltam. Myself-on outside was-I. “I was beside myself.” The SCATTERED SELF metaphor ATTENTIONAL SELF-CONTROL IS HAVING THE SELF TOGETHER

Szedd össze magad! Pick-IMP together yourself. “Pull yourself together!” SELF-CONTROL IS BEING ON THE GROUND

Kicsúszott a talaj a lába alól. Out-slipped the ground the foot-his from-under “He lost his bearings.”

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Where Metaphors Come From TAKING AN OBJECTIVE STANDPOINT IS LOOKING AT THE SELF FROM OUTSIDE

Nézz egy kicsit magadba és meglátod, hogy hibáztál. Look a little yourself-into and see that made-mistake-you. “Take a look at yourself and you’ll see that you’ve made a mistake.” The SOCIAL SELF metaphor JAPANESE: The SELF AS VICTIM metaphor Zibun-o azamuite-wa ikena-i. Self-ACC deceive-TOP bad-PRES Lit.: “To deceive self is bad.” “You must not deceive yourself.” The SELF AS SERVANT metaphor Kare-wa hito-ni sinsetuni-suru yooni zibun-ni iikikase-ta. He-TOP people-DAT kind-do COMP self-DAT tell-PAST “He told himself to be kind to people.” HUNGARIAN: The SUBJECT AND SELF AS ADVERSARIES metaphor Meg kellett küzdenie saját magával. PART had-to struggle-he own self-with “He had to struggle/ fight with himself.” The SELF AS CHILD metaphor Megjutalmazom magam egy pohár sörrel. PART—reward-I myself one glass beer-with “I’ll reward myself with a glass of beer.” The SELF AS SERVANT metaphor Rá kell kényszeritenem magam a korai lefekvésre. Onto must force-I myself the early going-to-bed “I must force myself to go to bed early.” Given this similarity in metaphorical conceptualization, can we assume that the concept of SELF is a uniform notion in languages/cultures of the world? If not, in precisely what ways it varies, and why. This is the major issue I attempt to explore below. The networks of concepts associated with the self In societies that emphasize the self, the concept is associated with a number of other concepts, including: Independence (personal) Self-centered Self-expression Self-indulgence Personal goals and desires

Contextual Factors

Happiness (personal) Achievement (personal) Self-interest Selfishness Suspicion Pride Competition Indifference We can call a society with such a network of concepts individualistic. We can characterize this network as follows: ¤ In such a society, individual people will regard themselves as being independent of others, that is, as autonomous. ¤ The self will view the world from his or her own perspective and finds him- or herself in the center. In other words, the self is self-centered. ¤ The self is taken to be expressible and self-expression is encouraged. ¤ The self seeks pleasure; in other words, he/she is self-indulgent. ¤ Individual people will have their own unique personal goals and desires. ¤ The self’s main goal and desire is personal happiness. This is most explicitly stated in the United States Declaration of Independence (“the pursuit of happiness”). ¤ Individual persons want to achieve their personal life goals, and they regard the success of achieving them as the main measure of success and happiness in life. ¤ The self is driven by self-interest. The interest of the self comes before the interest of the others or the group. ¤ People are “naturally” selfish. In a world of limited resources, they know that they accomplish life goals at the expense of others. ¤ The self views others with suspicion. This is because others are potential rivals in the way of accomplishing life goals. ¤ The self is proud. They assume they are better and/or more important than others. ¤ Individual people engage in competition against others in order to achieve life goals. They regard fair competition as the only fair way of accomplishing life goals. ¤ Such people feel indifferent to others. They feel that they have “won” in a fair competition and that the others they have defeated “deserve their fate.”

However, there are societies where the notion of the SELF goes together with a different network of concepts. The network of concepts that follow can be regarded as the opposite of the network above:

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Interdependence Other-centered Saving the other’s face Self-denial Social goals and desires Happiness (social) Achievement (social) Interest (social) Sharing Trust Humility Cooperation Care, Concern Where such a network of concepts exists, we can call that society collectivistic. It can be described in the following way: ¤ In such a society, the self will view himself or herself as interdependent on each other. ¤ The self will look at the world from the perspective of the others. In other words, the self is other-centered. ¤ The self will prefer to save the other’s face. The expression of the self is taken to be secondary. ¤ The self is characterized by self-denial. ¤ The self’s goals and desires are shared ones—goals and desires that have to do with the whole group. ¤ The major life goal of the self is happiness for the whole group; personal happiness is secondary. ¤ The self wants to achieve the betterment of the entire society. They consider this as their primary objective. ¤ The self’s actions are motivated by the interests of the whole group. Self-interest serves as secondary motivation. ¤ The self has the attitude of sharing in their relations to others. This means that he or she tries to further the well-being of others in the group and he or she will try to further the general well-being of the group. ¤ The self trusts others in the group, as their goals and desires are shared. ¤ The self’s attitude is that of humility toward other members of the group and the group as a whole. ¤ The self cooperates with others in the group in order to promote the well-being of members of the group and that of the group. ¤ The self cares for other members of the group and he or she is concerned about the interest of the whole group.

Contextual Factors

The concepts that characterize collectivistic societies can also be found in individualistic ones, and the concepts that characterize individualistic societies can also be found in collectivistic ones. After all, individualistic societies do have the concepts used to characterize collectivistic societies, and probably we have a similar situation with regard to the concepts that characterize collectivistic ones. However, in both cases we have preferential tendencies as regards the co-occurrence of the preceding concepts. The two sets of concepts can be brought into correspondence with each other in the following way: Independence (personal) Self-centered Self-expression Self-indulgence Personal goals and desires Happiness (personal) Achievement (personal) Self-interest Selfishness Suspicion Pride Competition Indifference

– – – – – – – – – – – – –

Interdependence Other-centered Saving the other’s face Self-denial Social goals and desires Happiness (social) Achievement (social) Interest (social) Sharing Trust Humility Cooperation Care, Concern

Since the concepts come from the two ends of the same scale, they appear to be each other’s opposites. For example, in the intended sense, independence is the opposite of interdependence, personal happiness is that of social happiness, suspicion is that of trust, and pride is that of humility. Thus, the concept of the SELF seems to co-occur with two very different networks of concepts. In the former, the self is highly emphasized and in the latter it is deemphasized. This conclusion makes it necessary to propose a more refined view of contextual influence on metaphorical conceptualization than I suggested at the beginning of the chapter. There my initial assumption was that differences in contextual factors will lead to differences in metaphorical conceptualization. But what we actually saw in the preceding paragraphs was that differences in the contextual factor of ideology did not lead to differences in metaphorical conceptualization—at least in the three languages/cultures we examined. Instead, the contextual factor of ideology led to a difference in the salience of the concept of SELF. The self appears to be much more salient in individualistic societies (characterized by the first network of concepts) than in collectivistic ones (characterized by the second). In other words, contextual influence may not necessarily affect metaphorical conceptualization but can affect other aspects of concepts (such as salience).

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Where Metaphors Come From SELFISHNESS AND THE BRAIN

Selfishness is clearly a negative concept. How is it possible that individualistic societies tolerate it and often even encourage it? The Hungarian neurobiologist Tamás Freund (2005) provides an interesting answer from the perspective of brain research. Freund suggests that in smaller communities, evolution favors patterns of behavior that can be regarded as unselfish. This is because in a small community the brain has all the necessary information about the community, and the individual is capable of monitoring the behavior of others. Thus, monitoring can function as a check or control over the behavior of others. In large communities, however, this control does not work because the individual brain has only a fragment of the information necessary to place any kind of control over the behavior of other members of the community. Most of the behavior of most members in the community is hidden to each individual brain. But even if it were accessible, the individual’s brain does not have the capacity to remember what all the others have done and thus to keep track of the relevant information concerning selfish behavior, and whether to punish individuals and eventually to exclude them from the community for selfish behavior. As a result, individuals with a selfish pattern of behavior will have a better chance to survive and reproduce. Overall, then, in small communities where the brain’s capacity is sufficiently large to monitor other members’ behavior, cooperative (unselfish) behavior is selected by evolution, whereas in the case of very large communities where the brain’s capacity is not sufficiently large to monitor everyone’s behavior, competitive (selfish) behavior is selected by evolution. Judging by the “human condition” in our large-scale Western communities, it is perhaps not overly pessimistic to predict that selfishness and greed will sooner or later lead to irreversible crises. If so, what can be done to prevent such situations? One of the possible solutions, Tamás Freund suggests, is to change the (conceptual) environment itself that surrounds us. Since changes in the environment are responsible for adaptation, if we change the nature of the environment, individuals will adapt to the new environment. Unlike most animals, human beings can do this. If we change the cultural, intellectual climate from the network of individualistic concepts to that of collectivistic ones, we can be successful in this enterprise. It is, however, less clear how such a large-scale restructuring of the conceptual environment could be implemented in most Western societies dominated by the opposing set of values.

Conceptual Integration Theory and Context

Conceptual integration is claimed to be a more “elaborate” and “deeper” cognitive operation than conceptual metaphor (see Fauconnier and Turner, 2002, 2008). As briefly shown in Chapter 2, conceptual integration makes use of

Contextual Factors

four domains or mental spaces allowing for mappings not just from the source domain to the target but also mappings from both (or more) of the input spaces into the blended space and even from the blend into the input spaces. Indeed, proponents of conceptual integration theory (CIT) think of metaphor as a relatively superficial cognitive phenomenon in comparison to blending. What interests me in this connection is the following question: Does the assumed higher degree of cognitive elaborateness and depth of conceptual integration make it immune to the “surface” effects of contextual factors that appear to characterize metaphor, as shown earlier in this chapter? In this section, I will go over some examples of conceptual blends and ask if context plays any role in how they work. More specifically, one issue that can be raised in connection with conceptual integration is why particular networks (made up of a generic space, several input spaces, and a blended space) are formed and expressed the way they are; in particular, why do they have the input spaces and the particular figurative linguistic expressions they do? I think part of the answer lies in the role of contextual factors I discussed earlier in connection with metaphor. Let us begin with an example of blending studied by Coulson and Oakley (2000: 187). Coulson and Oakley take the newspaper headline “Tennessee Tramples Kentucky” and analyze it as follows: Processes of representational contracting and stretching are what Fauconnier and Turner (2000) refer to as compression and decompression, phenomena which they see as central to blending theory. One place where compression is quite frequent is in news headlines, such as Tennessee Tramples Kentucky, or Overseas Absentee Ballots Boost Bush. In each case, the representation in the blended space is interpretable because of metonymic relationships between elements in the blended space and elements in the inputs. For example, the blended space in the network for Tennessee Tramples Kentucky is interpretable because of conventional metonymic mappings between states, their universities, and their universities’ football teams, as well as conventional metaphoric mappings between combat and sports. What seems to be missing from this analysis is an explanation of why we have the particular metaphorical expression trample in the example. It is not sufficient to say that it is present because of the SPORT IS WAR/FIGHT/COMBAT conceptual metaphor. There are many expressions that could be used based on this metaphor (such as defeat, beat, overpower), but of all the possibilities trample is used. I suggest the reason is that the phonological shape of the linguistic context triggers the choice of trample over the other potential alternatives. (On the role of phonological shape in the motivation of metaphorical expressions, see Benczes, 2013.) Trample alliterates with Tennessee. This is admittedly a very simple, almost trivial, effect of the linguistic context on the choice of

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a particular metaphorical expression, but it accounts, at least in part, for why an expression is chosen, given the alternatives. As a somewhat more complex example, consider a case that could be analyzed along similar lines. Another headline from the sports pages, taken from Aitchison (1987), is “Cowboys corral Buffalos.” (Actually, Aitchison mentions a number of similar headlines, such as “Clemson Cooks Rice,” “Air Force torpedoes the Navy,” “Cougars drown Beavers.”) The “Cowboys Corral Buffalos” example could be analyzed as follows: Given the three input spaces (universities with their football teams, the competition between them, and a space for the American West with cowboys and buffalos), we can set up a blended space in which we have the cowboys blended with one university’s football team and one of the opponents in the competition frame, the buffaloes with the other university’s football team and the other opponent in the competition frame, and finally the action of corralling with defeating, as represented in Figure 4.1. The issue here is why in one case the verb used for defeat is trample, in another it is corral , in a third it is cook , in a fourth it is drown, and so forth. My claim would be that, in many cases, the verbs vary because the linguistic context in which the idea to be conveyed, say, that of defeat, varies. In this case, unlike the previous one, it is the content, or meaning, of the immediate linguistic context (and not its phonological shape) that facilitates the choice of a metaphorical expression. As I pointed out earlier, this effect is due to the metaphorical coherence of discourse—the pressure of what I termed linguistic context above. Since the notion of the metaphorical coherence of discourse and

Input 1 university

Input 2 sports competition

Input 3 Wild West

university football team 1

opponent 1

cowboys

university football team 2

opponent 2

buffaloes

opp. 1 defeats opp.2

cowboys corall buffaloes

university 1/opp.1/ cowboys university 2/opp.2/ buffaloes defeating/coralling

Blend FIGURE 4.1

The “Cowboys Corral Buffaloes” blend.

Contextual Factors

its effect on creating metaphors in discourse is not part of the conceptual tools of CIT, it cannot account for this kind of variation in the use of metaphorical expressions. At the same time, however, I do not wish to imply that the linguistic context always produces this effect. Coulson and Oakley (2003: 54) examine another example that is very similar to the corral , cook , drown, and so on, examples. It is a headline again: “Coke Flows Past Forecasts: Soft Drink Company Posts Gains” from USA TODAY . They describe the example as follows: In (3) [the example in question] . . . “flows past forecasts” is an appropriate metaphoric predication for the Coca Cola corporation’s profit, and an appropriate literal predication for the Coca Cola corporation’s best known product. So, while the “Coke” in (3) is mainly construed as a corporation, it would appear to have some of the properties of the soft drink that corporation produces. [italics in the original] Although I agree with much of this analysis, I would add that the metaphorical verb flows is used here, as opposed to several other alternatives, such as goes, exceeds, surpasses, because both the immediate linguistic context and the more general topic influences the choice of the verb. Since coke is a liquid, it can flow, which is a semantic feature of the word. Thus, the word coke provides the immediate linguistic context that may motivate the selection of a verb from among the alternatives in the discourse. In addition to the immediate linguistic context, the general topic, the subject matter of the discourse, may also play a role. Since the topic is how the corporation makes profit with its best-known product, Coca Cola, which is a liquid, this may trigger or prime the use of the verb flow as well. In other words, in this case the linguistic context and the topic of the discourse may jointly lead to the selection of a metaphorically used word. As a final illustration of a contextual effect, let us take one of the most celebrated examples of CIT: “If Clinton were the Titanic, the iceberg would sink.” The input spaces have the Titanic and Clinton, respectively. The Titanic corresponds to Clinton and the iceberg that hits the Titanic corresponds to the scandal that hurt Clinton’s presidency. In addition, there is a conventional metaphor at work here. As Turner and Fauconnier (2000: 135) note in connection with the example: “It is uncontroversial that cases like the Clinton-Titanic example involve the basic metaphor PURPOSEFUL ACTIVITY IS TRAVELING ALONG A PATH TOWARD A DESTINATION – the traveler projects to the agent, reaching the destination projects to achieving the goal, and so on, . . . .” But, of course, the sentence conveys more than the metaphors can account for; namely, that Clinton is so strong that he survives the crisis that the scandal involved him in. This reading does not come from the Titanic input space, where the Titanic sinks as a result of its collision with the iceberg. It comes from the blended space

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that uses the Titanic scenario with Clinton as the Titanic, plus causal structure that is projected to the blend from the Clinton input space (i.e., where Clinton survived the scandal). Thus, in the blend, we have the Clinton/Titanic sinking the scandal/iceberg, rather than the scandal/iceberg causing the Clinton/Titanic’s ruin. The example shows very clearly a major advantage of CIT, as already shown in Chapter 2; namely, that meaning does not always arise from simple correspondences between source and target. What this type of analysis does not show, though, is why we have the particular input spaces that we do in the network of spaces. In other words, we can ask: Why is it that in order to talk about the Clinton scandal, the speaker of the sentence uses the Titanic scenario, and not some other potentially available scenario? In other words, it is not clear at all what motivates the presence of Titanic input space in the network. I believe that the model of metaphor creation in context can provide an account for many such cases, though maybe not for all. In the present example, the Clinton–Titanic blend came about because the Titanic movie was very much in public awareness at the time the blend was created. Thus, in the view I am proposing, it can be suggested that many of the metaphorical blends are invented as a result of the influence of what I call the “immediate cultural context” (more on this in Chapter 6). As a matter of fact, Turner and Fauconnier themselves also draw our attention to the fact that the blend could not have come about in 1992 without the Titanic catastrophe to begin with and without the wide popularity of the movie inside the Washington Beltway during the Clinton presidency. Thus Turner and Fauconnier provide the justification and motivation for the emergence of the blend in this particular case, but I would like to see this as falling out systematically from the framework that has been developed in this chapter. The four cases of blending that have been considered in the section seem to result partially from the effect of context on the use of metaphors and blends: the first from the influence of the phonological shape of the immediate linguistic context, the second from the (semantic) effect of the immediate linguistic context, the third from the combined effect of the linguistic context and the general topic, and the fourth from the immediate cultural context. I suspect that in many other cases of blending the other factors discussed in the chapter can play a similar role.

Conclusions

A number of contextual factors have been identified in this chapter, but possibly there are more. The workings of these factors suggest that conceptualizers take advantage of the various factors that make up the immediate (local) and nonimmediate (global) context in which metaphorical conceptualization takes

Contextual Factors

place. We can think of this contextual influence on conceptualization as largescale priming by context that is occurring simultaneously (and competitively) with the influence of entrenched embodiment. As a result of this interaction (this “in vivo” priming), the abstract concepts in the conceptual system and the system as such are constantly shaped and at the same time they shape the way we conceptualize the world. We can imagine these contexts as frames that are nested in one another, such that the physical setting as the outermost frame includes the social frame that includes the cultural frame, and so on, where in the “innermost” frame we find the speaker/conceptualizer, the hearer/conceptualizer, and the topic, as well as the diagram for the flow of discourse (functioning as the immediate linguistic context, or cotext). This idea of contexts as nested frames bears resemblance to Langacker’s construct of “current discourse space,” which he defines as “everything presumed to be shared by the speaker and hearer as the basis for discourse at a given moment” (Langacker, 2008: 281). The contextual factors I describe in this chapter can all trigger, prompt, facilitate, or simply prime, singly or in combination, the use of conventional or unconventional and novel metaphorical expressions in the discourse. We can represent the joint workings of these factors in Figure 4.2 (taken from Kövecses, 2010b). However, we also saw that different conceptual factors do not mechanically and automatically lead to differences in the metaphorical conceptualization of a concept. Rather, contextual influence may affect other aspects of a concept used in context (e.g., its salience) and leave metaphorical conceptualization unaffected. But at the present stage of research this cannot be a very strong claim. A single concept in just three languages (no matter how radically different they are) simply does not provide enough evidence for it. It is clear that there is a great deal of need for further research in this area. Finally, I also looked at the potential effect of the same contextual factors on conceptual integration. One issue that is not addressed in the depth it merits

PHYSICAL ENVIRONMENT SOCIAL SETTING CULTURAL CONTEXT speaker/conceptualizer hearer/conceptualizer topic f low of discourse

FIGURE 4.2

Some common contextual factors.

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by researchers in conceptual integration theory is why the networks they typically deal with are composed of the particular input spaces and the particular metaphorical linguistic expressions they include. My suggestion is that all the contextual factors that can play a role in metaphorical conceptualization can also affect conceptual integration networks. In the chapter, we have seen a variety of different cases for how this happens.

5

Metaphor and Culture

My goal in this chapter is to examine some of the aspects of the relationship between metaphor and culture in relation to the notion of context, as developed so far. One issue I wish to explore is how we can conceptualize the phenomenon of “culture” from a cognitive linguistic point of view. This exploration will lead to an “enhanced” view of culture, as well as context, where a distinction can be made between (at least) two ways of conceiving of culture (and context): culture as our meaning making system (as discussed in Chapter 3) functioning as context, on the one hand, and as a more specific cultural factor present in metaphorical conceptualization in a given communicative situation, on the other (as discussed in Chapter 4). Another issue concerns how a cognitive linguistic conception of culture squares with recent theories of culture, such as postmodernism in some of its forms. I will point out that the view of culture emerging from cognitive linguistics shares some important ideas with, for example, social constructionism, but at the same time it also leads to some radically different features of culture. The major differences between the theories can be captured most clearly in their claims concerning the universality and relativity of meaning. Finally, I will take up the issue of metaphor relative to the notions of embodiment and culture.

Culture as Meaning

What do we mean by the concept of culture in the humanities and in the study of culture and society for the purposes of this chapter? A good way of leading into this issue is to ask: What kind of work are we engaged in the study of languages, literatures, and cultures? In the study of, say, English literature, we make sense of literary texts; in Cultural Studies, we interpret various kinds of

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cultural experience; in historical linguistics, we study the evolution of meaning; in foreign language teaching, we try to find the most efficient ways of acquiring meaning in a foreign language; in Translation Studies, we seek to understand how meaning is rendered in another language, and so on and so forth. Is there a unified way of handling such a diverse set of activities? Or to put the question differently, can we approach this diverse range of topics from a more unified perspective than it is traditionally done and currently available in the humanities? I believe this is possible if we recognize that in all of these activities, we are engaged in what I call “meaning making” (see Chapters 2, 3, and 4 and Kövecses, 2006). The relationship between culture and language can be dealt with if we assume that both culture and language are about making meaning. This view of culture comes closest to that proposed by Clifford Geertz (1973: 5), who wrote: “Man is an animal suspended in webs of significance he himself has spun. I take culture to be those webs, and the analysis of it to be therefore not an experimental science in search of law but an interpretative one in search of meaning.” In this spirit, I suggest that we approach both culture and language as “webs of significance” that people both create and understand. The challenge is to see how they are created and understood—often in multiple and alternative ways. It is important to understand that I use Geertz’s idea for his emphasis on culture-as-webs-of-significance that makes it possible to think of culture as a nonmonolithic social construction, and not because I necessarily agree with the entire theoretical baggage that comes with his theory. For example, Geertz did not, and obviously could not, have the sophisticated theory of meaning making that we have today. The cognitive linguistic enterprise that started in the early 1980s provides exactly the apparatus with which we can describe how we make meaning (for a summary, see Kovecses, 2006). For another thing, I do not agree with the Geertzian idea that the analysis of culture cannot be an “experimental science.” Clearly, it can be (and should be), as demonstrated in this chapter. We have a culture when a group of people living in a social, historical, and physical environment make sense of their experiences in a more or less unified manner. This means, for example, that they understand what other people say; they identify objects and events in similar ways; they find or do not find behavior appropriate in certain situations; they create objects, texts, and discourses that other members of the group find meaningful; and so forth. In all of these and innumerable other cases, we have meaning making in some form: not only in the sense of producing and understanding language but also in the sense of correctly identifying things, finding behavior acceptable or unacceptable, being able to follow a conversation, being able to create or generate meaningful objects and behavior for others in the group, and so forth. Meaning making is a cooperative enterprise (linguistic or otherwise) that always takes place in a large set of contexts (ranging from immediate to background) and that occurs with varying degrees of success. People who can successfully participate in this kind of


meaning making can be said to belong to the same culture. Spectacular cases of unsuccessful participation in joint meaning making are called “culture shock.”

Brain/Mind, Meaning, and Culture

What is required for meaning making? Following Chapters 2 and 3, it can be suggested that the main meaning making organ is the brain/mind. The brain (and the nervous system in general) is the organ that performs the many cognitive operations that are needed for making sense of experience. These include categorization, figure–ground alignment, framing knowledge, metaphorical and metonymic understanding, conceptual integration, and several others. Cognitive linguists and cognitive scientists in general are in the business of describing these operations. Cognitive linguists believe that the same cognitive operations that human beings use for making sense of experience in general are also used for making sense of language. In the past half century, at least roughly speaking, two general trends can be distinguished in the study of the human meaning-making apparatus: what were called perceptual, modal, or experientialist, as opposed to nonperceptual, amodal, or objectivist conceptual systems in Chapter 3. In Chapter 4, I argued that (the metaphorical part of the) conceptual system emerges from its interaction with context, and that, as a matter of fact, the (study of the) conceptual system cannot be separated from the (study of) context. On this view, we can take culture to be a large set of meanings shared by a group of people. To be a member of a culture means to have the ability to make meaning with other people. This requires, of course, for people to have the organ of meaning making, the brain, the cognitive processes of meaning making, the body that makes linguistic and nonlinguistic signs meaningful and that imbues with meaning all objects and events that are not signs themselves, and, importantly, the physical and social environment in which the brain and the body jointly evolve. Particular cultures are characterized by the particular meaning-making processes that a group of people employs and the particular sets of meanings produced by them—in other words, a particular conceptual system. The meaning-making organs of the body and brain are shared universally and thus they do not belong to particular cultures. They are thus responsible for universal meanings—meanings shared by all groups of people (though universal meanings always have culture-specific aspects to them). However, as objects, or targets of conceptualization, both the body and the brain may be imbued with culture-specific meanings in particular cultures. As noted earlier, a key component of meaning making is the physical and social environment. Cultures differ considerably relative to their physical and social environment. What this means in our terms is that the environment contributes a large portion of the meanings that members of groups use to

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understand other aspects of their world. This influence of the environment is most obvious in metaphorical conceptualization (see Kövecses, 2005 and Chapter 10). Also on this view, language can be regarded as a repository of meanings shared by members of a culture. This lends language a historical role in stabilizing and preserving a culture—due, in part, to linguistic relativity, the notion that language shapes thought. Language is thus a part of culture because it gives us clues for meaning. At the same time, however, language often underdetermines interpretation; we create particular meanings (construals) in and by means of context (in other cases, particular construals are explicitly indicated by language). In the course of their interaction for particular purposes, members of a culture produce particular discourses. Such discourses can be thought of as particular assemblies of meanings concerning particular subject matters. When discourses provide a particular perspective on especially significant sub ject matters in a culture and when they function as latent norms of conduct, the discourses can be regarded as ideologies (see, e.g., Charteris-Black, 2004; Musolff, 2004; Goatly, 2007), which may have an impact on other discourses within the culture. Discourse in this sense is another source of making meaning. A large part of socialization involves the learning of how to make meaning in a culture.

Imaginative Reason

Perhaps the most distinguishing aspect of human reason in the experientialist view of how we make sense of the world is that it is imaginative (Johnson, 1987; Lakoff, 1987; Langacker, 1987; Lakoff and Johnson, 1999; Fauconnier and Turner, 2002; Kövecses, 2006). What this entails is that we can conceptualize the world in alternative ways. Language is structured by the same principles of operation as other modalities of the mind. However, these cognitive operations are not put to use in a universally similar manner (see Kövecses, 2005 and Chapter 2), that is, there can be differences in which cognitive operations are used to make sense of some experience in preference to another and there can be differences in the degree to which particular operations are utilized in cultures. This leads to what is called “alternative construal,” as discussed by Ronald Langacker in cognitive linguistics (see Langacker, 1987). Alternative construal is simply the understanding of the “same” situation in multiple ways (e.g., by applying different cognitive mechanisms to the situation, such as metaphor vs. metonymy). Moreover, the minds that evolve “on brains” in particular cultures are shaped by the various contexts (historical, physical, discourse, etc.) that in part constitute cultures (Kövecses, 2005). This leads to alternative conceptual systems.


Two of the several and most obvious cognitive operations that can give rise to alternative construals of the world and alternative conceptual systems are framing and metaphor, as I demonstrate later in this chapter.

Experientialism and Postmodernism

Clearly, the idea of alternative construal and alternative conceptual systems is compatible with several postmodernist ideas about the nature of meaning. Most obviously, the cognitive linguistic (i.e., experientialist) idea of alternativity in understanding the world is similar to a social-constructionist and relativistic attitude in postmodernist-poststructuralist thought. The version of postmodernist thinking I specifically have in mind is the one that emphasizes the social construction of meaning, and the concomitant idea that if meanings are socially constructed, then they are also variable according to culture, history, ideological persuasion, and so on. In short, they are relative to context. However, an important feature of experientialism seems to be in conflict with the notion of both alternativity in conceptualization in experientialism and the relativism of postmodernism. Experientialist philosophy is based on experimental cognitive science. This means that experientialism tries to base itself on psychologically real aspects of the mind. Since experientialist philosophy is experimental philosophy (cf. Lakoff and Johnson, 1999), psychologically real, cognitively valid experimental results that point to universal and essentialist aspects of human cognition potentially weaken not only the thesis of alternativity proposed by cognitive linguists and some cognitive scientists but also the constructionist and relativistic features of meaning emphasized by postmodern theorizing. We can see one such challenge in some recent experimental work on embodiment as it relates to metaphor. A particularly powerful demonstration of the embodiment hypothesis can be found in cognitive psychologist Daniel Casasanto’s recent work on the mental representation of abstract concepts (Casasanto, 2009). The idea is simple: If the particular bodies we have play a role in how we mentally represent abstract concepts and result in particular abstract concepts, then different bodies should result in different abstract concepts. Casasanto examined the GOOD IS RIGHT and BAD IS LEFT conceptual metaphors, exemplified in English by such phrases as “He is my right-hand man.” These conceptual metaphors seem to be universal. As Casasanto suggests, it is likely that the apparent universality of the association of good things with the right side comes from the predominance of right-handed people worldwide, who perform actions with their right hands more fluently than with their left hands. In one of the experiments he conducted, subjects were asked to draw a good animal (representing good things) in either of the boxes placed on the

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right and left side of a cartoon figure. (The experimental design was actually more complicated, but I leave out some of the details.) The subjects were instructed that the cartoon figure likes certain animals and thinks they are good, but does not like others and thinks they are bad. If the body-specificity idea of the embodiment hypothesis is correct, then right-handed people will place good animals in the box to the right of the cartoon figure, whereas left-handed people will place them in the opposite box. And if embodiment does not play a role in the mental representation of abstract concepts, then both right- and lefthanded people will place the good animals on the right-hand side of the figure because of the linguistic conventions found in languages of the world (where good things are expressed as “right” and bad ones as “left”). Sixty-seven percent of the right-handed participants put the good animals in the right-hand box and 74% of the left-handed ones in the box on the left of the cartoon character. In other words, the majority of both the right- and lefthanders performed the task consistently with their handedness: For the righthanders, good was right (GOOD IS RIGHT), whereas for the left handers, good was left (GOOD IS LEFT). This result indicates that we conceptualize abstract concepts in body-specific ways. The embodiment hypothesis was thus confirmed. At the same time, however, the experimental results present a challenge both to the possibility of unlimited alternativity in conceptualization and, consequently, to that of the unlimited social construction of meaning. Such results appear to be more damaging to postmodernist views, though, than to the cognitive linguistic view of embodiment. The reason is that although postmodernist views embrace the idea of (at least a potentially or theoretically) unlimited “ways of worldmaking,” or meaning construction, in the cognitive linguistic approach ways of worldmaking are delimited by embodiment. In the Lakoff and Johnson (1999) view especially, human thought and meaning emerge from embodied experience. Scholars in cultural studies might object that there is a huge amount of “cultural and historical baggage” that comes with our Western conception of left and right and that this baggage is inseparable from (our conception of) the physical human body. But consider again how the experiment is set up. The two parts that the experiment attempts to separate make different predictions: Cultural experience should lead to GOOD being associated with RIGHT ( conventional idioms in English language and culture make this manifest) for both right-handers and left-handers (there are no idioms in English where GOOD is LEFT), while physical experience should lead to GOOD associated with RIGHT in the case of right-handers and LEFT in the case of left-handers. If cultural experience is all-powerful, then both left- and righthanders should have associated GOOD with RIGHT and BAD with LEFT. But, as we have seen, for most left-handed people GOOD was LEFT. Thus, the result of the experiment clearly indicates, first, the separability of cultural experience from bodily experience and, second, that body-specificity leads to specificity


in conceptualization. In other words, we have strong evidence for the embodied nature of thought. However, in some cognitive linguistic work embodiment is conceived somewhat mechanically; more specifically, along the lines that, given a particular target domain associated with a physical experience, physical experience will mechanically determine which source domain is used to conceptualize the target domain. Several cognitive linguists have challenged this mechanical conception of embodiment (Geeraerts and Grondelaers, 1995; Gevaert, 2005). Caroline Gevaert (2005) studied the historical development of the ANGER IS HEAT metaphor in great detail. She found on the basis of a variety of corpora that heat-related words account for only 1.59% of all the words describing anger before 850. The number of heat-related words for anger dramatically increases in the period between 850 and 950. Then the number of these words decreases between 950 and 1050 to 6.22% and to 1.71% by around 1200, and then to 0.27% by around 1300. After 1300 the number starts growing again, and after 1400 it becomes dominant in texts that describe anger. These numbers indicate that the conceptualization of anger in terms of heat is not a permanent and ever-present feature of the concept of anger in English. How can this fluctuation occur in the conceptualization of anger over time? It cannot be the case that people’s physiology of anger changes every one hundred years or so. It is more likely to believe that universal physiology provides only a potential basis for metaphorical conceptualization—without mechanically constraining what the specific metaphors for anger will be. Heat was a major component in the concept of anger between 850 and 950, and then after a long decline it began to play a key role again at around 1400—possibly as a result of the emergence of the humoral view of emotions in Europe (see Geeraerts and Grondelaers, 1995). We can notice the same kind of fluctuation in the use of the domain of “swelling,” which corresponds to the “pressure” component in the conceptualization of anger. Pressure was a major part of the conceptualization of anger until around 1300, but then it began to decline, only to emerge strongly again, together with heat, in the form of the HOT FLUID IN A CONTAINER metaphor centuries later. In another publication (Kövecses, 2005), I referred to this phenomenon as “differential experiential focus” (see also Chapter 2), meaning that a particular abstract concept may have multiple bodily basis, such as body heat and pressure. The general point is that universal embodiment associated with a target domain may consist of several distinct components, or of distinct aspects. The conceptual metaphors that emerge may be based on one component, or aspect, at a certain point of time and on another at another point of time. Which one is chosen depends on a variety of factors in the surrounding cultural context. Moreover, the conceptual metaphors may be based on one component, or aspect, in one culture, while on another component, or aspect, in another culture.

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Where Metaphors Come From Postmodernist Thought and Cognitive Linguistics

We have seen in previous chapters that a large part of human meaning making is constrained by embodiment. This result goes against the postmodernist idea that we conceptualize the world in unlimited ways, that is, the idea that the ways of “world making” are infinite and unconstrained. The notion of embodiment also limits what is called “alternative construal” in cognitive linguistics—the notion that we conceptualize aspects of the world in alternative ways. At the same time, I suggest, as noted previously, that embodiment presents less of a challenge to the view of conceptualization in cognitive linguistics than in postmodern thought because the notion of embodiment is a foundational aspect of meaning making in cognitive linguistics but not in postmodern thought. In other words, in cognitive linguistics alternative construal and embodiment work together to make meaning making possible. In the next two sections, I pursue the same argument further. I will show that the notion of embodiment as it is used in cognitive linguistics (e.g., Johnson, 1987; Lakoff, 1987; Kövecses, 2005; Gibbs, 2006; Rohrer, 2007) has another serious implication for postmodernist ways of meaning making—more specifically, metaphorical meaning making. If ways of meaning making are unlimited and unconstrained, as postmodernism has it, meanings (i.e., conceptualizations of the world) are not universal but relative—relative to contexts of all sorts. I will suggest, by making use of a single but relatively well-studied example, that metaphorical meaning making can be universal—at least to some (though important) degree. At the same time, I will insist that there are certain parallels between cognitive linguistics and social constructionism. (I conceive of social constructionism as a part of the general postmodern enterprise.) I will specify some of the ways in which cognitive linguistics and social constructionism are similar to and different from each other concerning the issue of meaning making.

Social Constructionism and Cognitive Linguistics

Cognitive linguistics shares with postmodernism the idea that the mental representation of knowledge about the world is not a direct reflection of reality. Reality is not directly accessible to us, and what we experience as reality is a projected reality (see, e.g., Langacker, 2008). Our imaginative processes (see Chapter 2) all participate in the creation of this kind of reality. It is because of such differential conceptualizations that alternative construals and different projected realities can emerge in different contexts. In other words, the ways we think about the world are socially constructed. One of the major figures in the social constructionist movement in the study of emotion is the philosopher Rom Harré. Since Harré’s view, a view he


sometimes calls “emotionology,” is an extremely influential one and because the cognitive linguistic view of emotions that I have been working on for the past couple of decades bears certain important similarities, it makes sense to survey these similarities, as well as the differences, between his and my views. As will be seen, the cognitive linguistic view is, in many ways, sympathetic to Harré’s proposals. The basic similarity between the two is that in both theories language is seen as playing an important role in the study of the nature of emotion concepts. One of the differences between them appears to be in how these linguistic programs are carried out in this enterprise. Emotionology is a heavily linguistic-semantic program, but its program cannot be fully carried out because emotionology does not have the appropriate kind of linguistics necessary for the analysis that the program sets out to accomplish. The major difference between the two approaches is that emotionology, and social constructionism in general, claims a high degree of cultural relativity at the expense of universality, whereas the cognitive view gives equal weight to both relativistic and universal factors in the conceptualization of emotion. In the next section, I discuss in some detail the major similarities and differences between the two positions. EMOTION VOCABULARIES IN DIFFERENT LANGUAGES

One of Harré’s main ideas is that the different languages are characterized by different emotion terminologies. This section shows that in Harré’s emotionology (a part of what he calls “discursive psychology”) it is important that we investigate the complete terminology of emotions within a given language. The question arises as to what Harré means by an emotion terminology. In his papers (e.g., Harré, 1986a, 1994), we find such emotion terms as anxiety, joy, anger, sadness, boredom, embarrassment , and jealousy . These examples clearly show certain tendencies concerning this issue in Harré’s thinking. First, by an emotion vocabulary he means those emotion words that are most commonly used by speakers of a language (in this case, English). Second, all the words just listed are of the kind that we could characterize as literal (rather than metaphorical). Third, the words on the list all indicate different emotions. In other words, the picture that Harré paints of emotion vocabularies suggests that this vocabulary is a collection of the most commonly used nonmetaphorical words denoting different emotions. For Harré (especially in his 1994 paper), the issue of what we mean by emotions involves the “language games” that we can play with a few dozens of emotion words (on the basis of four criteria listed by him). This is important in emotionology in order to be able to show the difference between roughly similar emotions in any two languages–cultures (such as English, for instance, “anger” in English and its approximate Chinese counterpart “nu”). However, Harré’s 1994 paper is somewhat misleading concerning the program of emotionology. Harré clearly saw that within any given emotion,

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not only one but several “language games” can be played. That is, we should study the use of not just one emotion word within each (emotion) domain but the use of several words in the same domain. This idea appears in another of Harré’s writings (Harré, 1986), in which he introduces “social constructionism.” He wrote: “Instead of asking the question, ‘What is anger?’ we would do well to begin by asking, ‘How is the word anger, and other expression that cluster around it, actually used in this or that cultural milieu and type of episode?’” (p. 5). What is important for us in this quote for the present purposes is the part where Harré talks about “anger, and other expressions that cluster around it.” In other words, we are asked to imagine emotionology as an approach that investigates the use of not just one but several words even within the same emotion domain. However, this idea is not carried out by Harré or the other representatives of the social constructionis movement. They appear to be content with examining the use of a few key emotion words (such as anger, fear) in the way suggested by Harré. This practice, I believe, has certain negative consequences for the theory, to which I return later in the chapter. Indeed, how many language games do we play in the case of an emotion? To put the same question more simply: how many linguistic expression do we use in connection with our emotions, and in what ways? The number is much greater than what appears in the practice of social constructionism. In the case of anger, there are well over a hundred linguistic expressions available to speakers of (American) English (Lakoff and Kövecses, 1987) and in the case of love the number is several hundred (Kövecses, 1988). Based on my studies of the English emotion lexicon (see, e.g., Kövecses, 1986, 1988, 1990, 1991a, 1991b), we can estimate the number of available language games for each basic emotion to be fairly high, in most cases more than a hundred. We have no reason to believe that this number is any less in other languages (such as Chinese, for which see King, 1989, and Yu, 1995, 1998; or Hungarian, for which see Bokor, 1997 and Kövecses, 2000). Obviously, the number of available language games in a language-culture depends heavily on the extent to which an emotion is viewed as foregrounded in the culture, that is, as “hypercognized,” rather than “hypocognized,” to use Levy’s (1973) terms. THE ROLE OF FIGURATIVE EXPRESSIONS

By “figurative expressions” I simply mean metaphors and metonymies. If we examine the several hundred linguistic expressions that are commonly used by native speakers of, say, English, to talk about the emotions, we find that most of these are figurative, that is, metaphoric or metonymic in nature. Speakers of English say that people boil with anger, tremble like a leaf , burn with desire, give vent to their feelings, hold back their emotions, are overwhelmed by joy, are hit by somebody’s death, can be puffed up or swelled with pride, can be hot with


lust, can be sustained by hope, and many others. The role of these and many other similar linguistics expressions in Harré’s work on emotion is unclear, and the other representatives of the social constructionist view attribute no (or very little) importance to them. By ignoring figurative language, however, social constructionism leaves unexplored one of the major factors in (either folk or expert) theory making. Metaphor has the power to create reality for us; it is the major way in which the human cognitive system produces nonphysical reality, that is, the social, political, psychological, emotional, and so on worlds (see Kövecses, 1999, 2000, 2002/2010a). Many, if not all, expert and nonexpert theories in these general domains are based on conceptual metaphors and are reflected linguistically in metaphorical expressions. Some well-known and well-studied examples from domains outside emotion include the superstructure of the Marxist theory of society, which relies on the conceptual metaphor of SOCIETY IS A BUILDING (Rigotti, 1995); the sending and receiving of messages, which relies on the conceptual metaphor complex MEANINGS ARE OBJECTS, LINGUISTIC EXPRESSIONS ARE CONTAINERS (FOR THESE OBJECTS); and COMMUNICATION IS SENDING OBJECTS (ALONG A CONDUIT) (Lakoff, 1993; Reddy, 1979), and the conception of the human mind as a computer, which relies on the metaphor THE MIND IS A COMPUTER (Sternberg, 1990). In several studies I have suggested that the emotions are “constructed” by means of such figurative conceptual devices, most prominent among these being the conceptual metaphor EMOTION IS FORCE. (On the controversy between Quinn, on the one hand, and Lakoff and myself, on the other, concerning this issues, see Quinn, 1991; Kövecses, 1999; Strauss and Quinn, 1997). There are, of course, universal and culture-specific aspects to this conceptualization, which I analyze elsewhere (see Kövecses, 2000a, 2005). Although Harré’s 1994 paper does not mention metaphor and its role, in the other paper mentioned earlier (Harré, 1986) he does make reference to it, again in a programmatic form: . . . we do say that someone is puffed up or swollen with pride, too. These metaphors may perhaps be traced to an element of the ridiculous in an exaggerated or excessive display. The matter deserves more research. The same could be said for hope, which also benefits from a cluster of characteristic metaphors, such as surging, springing and the like. (p. 9) That is, Harré is well aware that metaphor is important in a constructivist view of emotion and that it deserves further research, but he and other constructivists do not explicate its relevance, nor do they demonstrate it through detailed case studies. In this respect, then, the “real constructivists” are those cognitive linguists, who view emotion concepts as being largely (thought not completely) constituted by metaphor (and metonymy). This is the theory on the basis of which emotion concepts can be claimed to be social-cognitive constructions.

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I do not wish to go into the technical details of how emotions concepts emerge as conceptual structures constituted by metaphor (but see Kövecses, 2000, 2010a). Suffice it to say that, as was already mentioned, the generic metaphor speakers of English (and other languages as well) most heavily rely on in understanding what the emotions are is EMOTIONS ARE FORCES. This force can be human (e.g., in the specific metaphor EMOTION IS AN OPPONENT), animal (e.g., in EMOTION IS A WILD ANIMAL), physical (e.g., in EMOTION IS A MAGNETIC/ GRAVITATIONAL FORCE), natural (e.g., in EMOTION IS A FLOOD/WIND/STORM), or a force influencing human perception or thought (e.g., in EMOTION IS INSANITY/ RAPTURE). This particular conceptualization goes with a certain logic. For ordinary people emotions are FORCES that emerge independently of a rational and conscious self as a result of certain causes, and that, in most cases, have to be kept under control. In other words, the role and significance of metaphor in emotion is that it creates a certain model of emotion. This aspect of the study of emotion is completely missing from, or present only programmatically in, the view of emotion eminently represented by Harré. COGNITIVE MODELS OF EMOTION

When we say that the metaphors constitute a certain model of emotion (i.e., provide a certain conception of it), what I have in mind is a cognitive structure that is variously called a “frame,” “schema,” “script,” “cultural model,” “cognitive model,” “idealized cognitive model,” and the like, in psychology, anthropology, and linguistics (for a recent introduction to this concept, see Strauss and Quinn, 1997 and Kövecses, 2006). The language-based cultural model of emotion in English comprises several stages that unfold in time. This generic cultural, or folk, model can be given as follows (based on Kövecses, 1990, chapter 11). The model provides a schematic representation of the concept as structured by the EMOTION IS FORCE metaphor. (For an even more schematic representation of emotion, see Chapter 3.) 0. Neutral emotional state The subject (S) is emotionally calm. 1. Cause Something happens to S. The event exerts a sudden and strong impact on S. Emotion (E) comes into existence. S is passive with regard to this. 2. Emotion exists. Emotion acts as a force on S. Part of emotion is a desire to cause S to perform an action.


S knows that the act is socially dangerous and/or unacceptable to do. The action, if performed, can satisfy the desire involved in emotion. The intensity of emotion is high; it is near the limit that S can control. S exhibits a variety of (physiological, behavioral, expressive) responses. 3. Control S knows that he/she is under obligation to resist the desire and not to perform the action. S applies a counterforce to prevent the action from happening. However, the intensity of emotion as a force increases over the limit that S can control. 4. Loss of control S is now unable to control the force acting on him/her. The force causes S to perform the action. 5. Action S performs the action. S is not responsible for the action because he/she only obeys a stronger force. The desire in emotion is now satisfied. Emotion ceases to exist. 0. Neutral emotional state S is calm again. This is a model of emotion that a language-based study yields, but it is not just a model that inheres in language. It also exists in people’s heads. Parrott (1995) demonstrated the psychological reality of the model with sociopsychological experiments. As I have already emphasized, the model represents a certain folk theory of emotion. And it is increasingly certain that it does not represent something that really happens when people experience emotion, despite the fact that it exists in people’s heads. An expert, or scientific, theory of emotion that is gaining more and more acceptance as a result of neurobiological experiments is closer to the Jamesian view of emotion, in which the “response” precedes (rather than follows) the emotion itself (see Le Doux, 1996). I believe that given this folk theory, or idealized cognitive model, of emotion we can understand better how metaphors are capable of producing a certain concept of emotion. Both emotion and the cause of emotion are metaphorically viewed as concrete forces. The cause-as-force produces the emotion and the emotion-as-force produces a response. The rational self is also viewed as a forceful agent that attempts to control emotion, but, in the prototypical case, eventually gives in to its stronger force. This yields a generic-level structure to

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the concept of emotion that can be given as: “cause → emotion → response.” Without conceiving of emotion metaphorically as concrete forces, it would be difficult to see how this particular generic level model of emotion could have emerged (see Kövecses, 1999). Given this inherently metaphorically structured concept, Quinn’s (1991) claim that the cultural model of anger is literal does not seem to be right. (On the controversy concerning whether abstract concepts are literally or metaphorically constituted, see Kövecses, 1999, 2005). The model just described provides the “prototype” of emotion—in the sense of Rosch (e.g., 1978). Prototypical emotions include anger, fear, joy, and sadness. All of these can be characterized in roughly the terms of the model described. Needless to say, this is just one of the many commonsense models of emotion that people have. What gives it privileged status is the fact that it is a central one from which all kinds of deviations are possible. These “deviations” represent further, less prototypical cases. Less prototypical cases include situations where, in “weaker” emotions, the issue of control does not even arise or where, at the end of an intense emotional episode, the self does not calm down but remains “emotional.” There are many such additional nonprototypical cases. Specific emotions can also be represented in terms of prototypical models. Anger, fear, joy, love, and so on also exist in many forms, which characterize various deviations from their respective prototype, or best example (see, e.g., Lakoff and Kövecses, 1987, for anger; Kövecses, 1990, for fear; Kövecses, 1988, 1991a, for love; and Kövecses, 1991b, for joy and happiness). Such nonprototypical cases are often given linguistic manifestations that are different from that denoting the prototype. For example, giving vent to one’s emotion describes a controlled way of expressing one’s feeling (as opposed to losing control over it against one’s will), and is thus a nonprototypical form of emotion; indignation is a nonprototypical form of anger in which a wrongdoer does harm not to the self (i.e., the subject of anger) but typically to a third party. Significantly, many of these nonprototypical cases are metaphorical in nature, as the example of giving vent to one’s emotion indicates (as it is based on the metaphor according to which the BODY IS A CONTAINER and EMOTION IS A FLUID UNDER PRESSURE IN IT). What this shows is that we play many distinct “language games” in connection with both the generic concept of emotion and the specific emotion concepts. In addition, many of these language games are metaphorical. Social constructionists lose sight of the fact that both the prototypical and nonprototypical cases of emotion may be constituted by figurative devices. This may seem like a radical idea, but it can be taken even farther. It can be claimed that there is nothing in the conceptualization of emotions that is not figurative. Győri (1998) showed that emotion words that we take to be literal (nonfigurative) today are etymologically all figurative. Anger, grief , happy (English), rad “happy,” gore “grief,” ljubov “love,” strach “fear” (Russian), Hass “hatred,” Zorn “anger” (German), and düh “anger,” méreg (= poison) “anger,” szeret


“to love,” and szomorú “sad” (Hungarian) are common emotion terms in these languages and are based on still-active conceptual metaphors and metonymies. If we examine the content of the idealized cognitive models associated with emotion or other emotion concepts, we find that they greatly overlap with Harré’s rules of emotion. According to Harré (1994), in the course of the appropriate use of emotion words in different cultures people observe certain “local rules.” The rules are of four kinds, “classified by reference to what is criterial for their correct usage”: (a) “appropriate bodily feelings,” (b) “distinctive bodily displays,” (c) “cognitive judgments,” and (d) “moral judgments” and the “social acts” corresponding to them (p. 7). Harré’s four kinds of rules neatly match the different aspects of the prototypical folk model of emotion given previously. Physical sensations and bodily manifestations can be found in stage 2 of the cognitive model, where the sub ject of emotion produces certain physiological, behavioral, and expressive responses to a certain event; cognitive judgments occur in stage 1, where certain events are judged in certain ways, as a result of which the subject feels he or she is in a particular emotional state; moral judgments can be found in stages 1 and 3, where the subject judges the event (stage 1) and the emotion itself (more appropriately, the need to control it) according to the local moral code; and finally, social actions occur in stage 5, where the subject performs one or more social actions appropriate to the emotion. Given this overlap, it can be suggested that the rules of emotionology and the cognitive models of emotion(s) as described have largely the same content. It is important to see that both cognitive models of emotion and Harré’s rules of emotionology characterize everyday, or folk, understandings of emotion—not scientific, or expert, ones. We can assume that, as the rules of emotionology emerge from an investigation of everyday language use, emotionology does not distinguish between the folk and expert theories of emotion (but see Kövecses, 2000, chapter 7, for the relationship between the two from a cognitive linguistic perspective).

Relativity versus Universality

One of the major ideas of emotionology and, more generally, of social constructionism, is that the “language games” played in different languages and cultures are very much unlike each other even in the case of roughly corresponding words. That is, as Harré repeatedly stresses in his 1986 paper, emotions are characterized by different emotion vocabularies in different cultures and, what’s more, even the emotions themselves differ from culture to culture (Harré, 1986a: 10). Two questions arise in this connection: (1) Which emotion-related conceptual metaphors are universal (or near-universal) and which ones are language/culture-specific? (2) Can we predict which emotion-related conceptual

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metaphors are universal? In other words, do we have any basis for predicting which of these are language/culture-specific and which ones are not? The first question can be settled in an empirical way. We have to study as many languages as possible and check whether a given emotion-related conceptual metaphor in any one language/culture can be found in other languages/ cultures. This is no small task, as there are several dozens of emotion-related conceptual metaphors, for example, in English and there are thousands of other languages/cultures around the world. We can answer the second question only if we have reliable empirical evidence of the universality (or at least near-universality) of at least one emotion-related metaphor. In this case, we can begin to make hypotheses concerning the issue of why certain conceptual metaphors are universal (or near-universal). Following joint work on anger with George Lakoff (Lakoff and Kövecses, 1987), several scholars have looked at anger-related metaphors in languages other than English. This work has given us occasion to compare emotion-related conceptual metaphors in several radically different languages and cultures (see Kövecses, 2000, 2002/2010). The languages that were investigated in a detailed way with this goal in mind include English, Hungarian, Japanese, and Chinese. In addition, we have some data from Wolof, a West African language spoken in Senegal and Gambia, and some observations about Tahitian culture. The conceptual metaphor related to anger that can be found in all of these languages is THE ANGRY PERSON IS A PRESSURIZED CONTAINER, a kind of FORCE metaphor. In what follows in this section, I illustrate this metaphor with only a few examples. In English, we find a special case of this generic-level metaphor: ANGER IS A HOT FLUID IN A CONTAINER. The hot fluid exerts pressure on the walls of the container (i.e., the human body). Lakoff and Kövecses (1987) offered these metaphorical linguistic expressions for the HOT FLUID conceptual metaphor in English: He was boiling . Sam exploded . She is seething . I was fuming for hours. He was pissed off. After she let off some steam, she felt better. As Matsuki (1995) showed, a similar conceptual metaphor is found in Japanese as well. In Japanese, the equivalent of anger is ikari . (Later, I provide the Japanese, Chinese, Hungarian, and Wolof examples as transcribed into English by the authors whose work I quote.) Here are some Japanese examples for the PRESSURIZED CONTAINER metaphor: Ikari ga karada no naka de tagiru. Anger seethes inside the body.


Ikari ga hara no soko wo guragura saseru. Anger boils the bottom of stomach. The nearest Chinese counterpart of anger is nu (see King, 1989; Yu, 1995, 1998). As King and Yu pointed out, Chinese also has the PRESSURIZED CONTAINER metaphor. This can be demonstrated with examples such as the following: Qi man xiong tang Qi full breast To have one’s breast full of qi Qi yong ru shan Qi well up like mountain. One’s qi wells up like a mountain. Bie yi duzi qi Hold back one stomach qi To hold back a stomach full of qi Bu shi pi qi fa zuo NEGATIVE make spleen qi start make To keep in one’s spleen qi The word for anger is düh in Hungarian. My students and I have studied this concept and found that the same conceptual metaphor is present in Hungarian as well (Bokor, 1997). Some examples include: Fort benne a düh. [boiled in-him/her the anger] Anger was boiling inside him. Fortyog a dühtől. [seethed the anger-with] He/she is seething with anger. The HOT FLUID metaphor is also found in Wolof. Munro (1991) observed that the Wolof word bax, which has the primary meaning “to boil,” also possesses the meaning “to be very angry.” Similarly, the HOT FLUID metaphor also exists in Chumburung, a language spoken in Ghana (Hansford, 2005). Hansford gives the sentence “mo dun a fwii” as “my heart has boiled,” meaning “I was angry” (Hansford, 2005: 164). We have some evidence of a closely related conceptual metaphor in Tahitian. According to Levy, as quoted in Solomon (1984), “The Tahitians say that angry man is like a bottle. When he gets filled up he will begin to spill over” (p. 238). As these examples show, anger and its counterparts in several different languages/cultures are conceptualized by means of remarkably similar conceptual metaphors. (Needless to say, there are several interesting and important differences in this conceptualization, but I do not discuss them here. See Kövecses, 2000.) We can then tentatively suggest that the conceptual metaphor THE ANGRY PERSON IS A PRESSURIZED CONTAINER (or ANGER IS PRESSURE IN A CONTAINER) is a near-universal metaphor. How is this possible? Several answers suggest

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themselves (see Kövecses, 2000). Of these, what seems most likely is that people in these different cultures possess certain attributes that make them conceptualize anger in the same way. The shared attributes may be certain physiological features of the human body during the experience of anger. I claim that it is the similarity of the body and that of its physiological processes in anger that may motivate the emergence of the (roughly) same metaphorical conceptualization. Do we have any linguistic evidence to support this claim? We can find such evidence in the metonymies (see Kövecses and Radden, 1998; Kövecses, 2010a) associated with anger in the different languages/ cultures. Metonymies in the emotion domain describe physiological, behavioral, and expressive responses in emotional states (see Kövecses, 1986, 1990, 2000). By making reference to one’s physiological, behavioral, and/or expressive responses, one can talk about emotion as such. (In other words, simply put, there is a “stand-for” relationship between response and emotion.) Which physiological, behavioral, and/or expressive responses are used to talk about anger in the languages/cultures we have some evidence for? Let us survey these. Increases in body temperature English (examples from Lakoff and Kövecses, 1987): Don’t get hot under the collar. Billy’s a hothead . They were having a heated argument. When the cop gave her a ticket, she got all hot and bothered. Chinese (Yu, 1995): Wo qi de lian-shang huo-lala de. I gas fire-hot. Japanese (examples from Noriko Ikegami and Kyoko Okabe): (Watashi-no) atama-ga katto atsuko-natta. My head get hot. Karera-wa atsui giron-o tatakwasete-ita. They heated argument were having. Atama o hiyashita hoo ga ii. Head cool should. Hungarian: forrófej ű hotheaded felhevült vita heated debate Hűtsd le magad! Cool down yourself!


Wolof (examples from Munro, 1991): tang [to be hot] to be bad-tempered Tangal na sama xol. [He heated my heart.] He upset me/made me angry. Chumburung (example from Hansford, 2005): Mo dun maa yuri. My heart will not cool (after a quarrel). INTERNAL PRESSURE

English (examples from Lakoff and Kövecses, 1987): Don’t get a hernia! When I found out, almost burst a blood vessel. He almost had a hemorrhage. Chinese (examples from King, 1989): qi de naomen chong xue qi DE brain full blood qi po du pi break stomach skin fei dou qi zha le lungs all explode LE Japanese (examples from Noriko Ikegami and Kyoko Okabe): kare no okage de ketsuatsu agarippanashi da he due to blood pressure to keep going up sonna ni ikiri tattcha ketsuatsu ga agaru yo like that get angry blood pressure to go up Hungarian: Agyvérzést kap. [Cerebral-hemorrhage gets.] Felmegy benne a pumpa. [Up-goes in-him/her the pump.] Pressure rises in him/her. Felmegy a vérnyomása. [Up-goes his/her-blood-pressure.] His/her blood pressure goes up. REDNESS IN THE FACE AND NECK AREA

English:

She was scarlet with rage. He got red with anger. He was flushed with anger.

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Chinese (examples from King, 1989): Ta lian quan hong le yanjing mao huo lai. He face all red LE eyes emit fire come. Qi de lian dou zi le. qi face all purple. Japanese (examples from Noriko Ikegami and Kyoko Okabe): Kare wa makka ni natte okotta. He red to be get angry. Makka ni natte okoru. Red become get angry. Kare wa ikari-de akaku-natta. He with anger got red. Hungarian: Vörös lett a feje. [Red became the head-his/her.] His head turned red. In my view, it is these physiological and expressive responses coded as metonymies into a variety of languages that may have led to the similar conceptualization of anger and its counterparts in different cultures. We call this conceptualization the PRESSURIZED CONTAINER metaphor. Another part of the motivation for this may be that these cultures, and possibly others as well, conceive of the human body as a container, in which there is some hot fluid (e.g., the blood) that can exert pressure on the container. This physical pressure corresponds metaphorically to the force that may lead to a loss of control and that forces the angry person to perform certain (aggressive) actions. (There are many additional complications that I leave out of this account, but see Kövecses, 2000.) It is crucially important for the cognitive linguistic view to ask whether the physiological processes in anger that were identified in language earlier are merely folk theoretical notions or they can be established objectively, that is, they are real. Levenson and his colleagues (1992) showed that Americans and members of the Minangkabau tribe living in West Sumatra produce the same physiological responses when they are angry: Among other things, their body temperature increases and their blood pressure rises. Levenson and Ekman (Ekman, Levenson, and Friesen, 1983; Levenson, Ekman, Heider, and Friesen, 1992) provided further evidence that metaphorical and metonymic conceptualization is based on universal human experiences, including, importantly, physiological ones—especially in the realm of the emotions. These results point to the conclusion that emotionology and social constructionism go too far in claiming linguistic and cultural relativity in the domain of emotion. As we have seen, a large and important part of emotional conceptualization, because of universal physiology, appears to be universal.


In conclusion, then, it appears that, contrary to the views of social constructionism, the conceptualization of emotions is, to some degree at least, universal (or near-universal). Obviously, this idea leaves room for the complementary view that several additional aspects of the emotions and the “language games” we can play with emotion terms can be greatly different in different languages and cultures (see Kövecses, 2000, 2005). The cognitive linguistic approach agrees with emotionology and social constructionism in that emotion concepts are linguistically-culturally different, but disagrees with their radical and unconstrained relativity. The view that I find convincing is that, at least in the case of what are called “basic emotions,” emotion concepts are characterized by a solid bodily-physiological basis and that this basis leads to a certain degree of (near-)universality in the conceptualization of emotions. This is the view that I called “body-based constructionism” in Metaphor and Emotion (2000). In my view, the constructivist potential of emotionology is not, and cannot, be realized because it does not take seriously the “world making” potential of metaphor. Although in his program Harré pays some attention to and sees a role for metaphor in constituting the emotional world, this program is only realized in cognitive linguistics. In this sense, cognitive linguistics can thought of as the “most fully accomplished form” of constructionism (but leaving behind its radical relativity). This weakness of emotionology and constructionism largely follows from the fact that they confine the study of emotion to the analysis of a few commonly used, nonmetaphorical emotion words, instead of paying attention to the large number of words and expressions related to particular emotions and their richness and complexity that can be found in different languages of the world. Emotionology and constructionism cannot realize their own linguisticsemantic program that they share with cognitive linguistics. The cognitive linguistic view of emotions is capable of integrating a methodologically sound analysis of the linguistic richness and complexity of emotion language in a particular culture with social-cultural variation, as well as with universality that arises from the physiology of the human body.

Embodiment, Metaphor, Culture

What then is the relationship among embodiment, metaphor, and culture? Mostly based on my research on emotions (Kövecses, 1990, 2000/2003, 2008b), my suggestion has been that when people metaphorically conceptualize a conceptual domain in a situation, they are under the “pressure of coherence” (Kövecses, 2005). What this means is that they are to obey two simultaneous pressures: the pressure that derives from the human body and the pressure of the global and local context in which the conceptualization takes place (see

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also Chapter 4). In successful cases of being coherent with the two pressures, conceptual metaphors emerge that successfully answer both forms of pressure. Not surprisingly, such metaphors are well known and deeply entrenched ones in a culture, such as the conceptual metaphor we have seen above: THE ANGRY PERSON IS A PRESSURIZED CONTAINER. What metaphors of this kind show is that, very often, we are dealing with what I termed “body-based social constructionism” (Kövecses, 2000/2003), as noted previously. These are cases where both the body and the surrounding context play a motivating role in the emergence of the metaphor. In different languages and cultures, the details of this skeletal, generic-level metaphor motivated by universal bodily experience will be filled out in different ways. In some, the cause of the pressure comes from a heated fluid inside the container, in some the material that fills the container will not be fluid but gas, in some the container will be the stomach/belly area and not the body as a whole, and so on (see Kövecses, 2000/2003, 2005). In other words, we can find both universality and variation in the same metaphor. However, some conceptual metaphors will be cases of predominantly body-based metaphors. One of the best known conceptual metaphors in this group is KNOWING IS SEEING. The tight correlation between knowing, understanding, finding something out by means of being able to see it and examine it provides universal motivation for the existence of this metaphor. This does not have to mean that it actually exists in all languages and cultures or that there are no alternative conceptual metaphors that are available for the same purpose as this metaphor. As a third group, we can identify metaphors that have a predominantly cultural basis. Perhaps the most celebrated example here is the conceptual metaphor TIME IS MONEY (Lakoff and Johnson, 1980). The metaphor results (mostly) from the (once?) prevailing philosophy of capitalism that associates (and correlates) the profit one can make with the amount of time needed to make a product. Notice, however, as this view of production and the correlation it relies on is accepted, the motivational basis of the metaphor will also be expanded to bodily experience: Given that things work this way, we’ll find the correlation between these experiences entirely natural. In sum, then, we have a gradient of metaphors from those based on bodily experience to cultural experience. We can summarize this as follows: Bodily basis: Body-based social constructionism : Cultural basis At some level of analysis and in some rare (but valuable) instances (such as the GOOD IS LEFT conceptual metaphor), we find body and culture separated (in that there are no conventional linguistic or cultural idioms to reflect this particular conceptualization). But, as I briefly indicated, there appear to be no “pure” cases. Bodily basis is almost always tinged with some cultural influence and cultural basis always becomes “real,” “natural” bodily experience. (For a similar position, see Gibbs, 1999; Yu, 2008.) To put it differently, we’re dealing


with a cline from cases where the body dominates and culture is less noticeable through cases where the body and culture are present in more or less equal proportions all the way to cases where culture predominates over the body. In other words, body and culture work jointly at all stages of the cline—one being inseparable from the other. And when, as exceptional cases, we find them separable, we get wonderful evidence for their inseparability as a rule.

Conclusions

I attempted to provide a definition of culture along cognitive linguistic lines, where a culture can be seen as a group of people living in a social, historical, and physical environment making sense of their experiences in a more or less unified manner. This definition and the general conceptual framework of which it is a part is both compatible and incompatible with the prevalent view of culture today: postmodernism. Although both emphasize alternativity (alternative construal) in making sense of the world, they also differ on the issue of whether this alternativity is constrained or unlimited. The cognitive linguistic view prefers constrained alternativity, as opposed to the unlimited, or unconstrained, relativity of meaning making in postmodernist thought. The cognitive view gives equal weight to both relativistic and universal factors in the conceptualization of meaning, as was demonstrated for the conceptualization of emotions. It appears that, contrary to the views of social constructionism (a variety of postmodernist theories), the conceptualization of emotions is, to some degree at least, universal (or near-universal). This idea also leaves room for the complementary view that several additional aspects of the emotions can be greatly different in different languages and cultures—a view that is dubbed “body-based constructionism” (Kövecses, 2000). Conceptual metaphors can be based on both (predominantly universal) bodily experience and (relative) cultural experience. We can think of the basis, or embeddedness, of metaphors as a gradient with bodily basis at one end, cultural basis at the other, with doubly motivated cases of conceptual metaphors in the middle, where the influence of social constructionist tendencies is just as strong as that of universal embodiment. The idea of culture as a system of shared meaning making can provide us with an enhanced view of culture and context. We can think of the shared meaning making system as global context for particular instances of metaphorical conceptualization. It seems appropriate to draw a distinction at this point between this global (or background) context and the more specific cultural context that was discussed in Chapter 4 and that will be taken up again in Chapters 6 and 7. We can refer to the former as culture 1 and to the latter as culture 2. The shared meaning making system (culture 1) provides a (more or

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less) uniformly present context for all members of a language community, while the latter involves specific local aspects of one’s understanding of a given communicative situation. The former makes it possible for conceptualizers to draw well-established and entrenched metaphors from long-term memory, while the latter enables them to either select metaphors from among the established ones or to create novel ones given the local, immediate context. The metaphors that belong to the latter type are regarded here as “context-induced” ones. Such context-induced metaphors are the focus of the next two chapters.

6

Context and Metaphorical Creativity

Where do we recruit novel and unconventional conceptual materials from when we speak, think and act metaphorically, and why? This question has been partially answered in the cognitive linguistic literature but, in my view, a crucial aspect of it has been left out of consideration or not dealt with in the depth it deserves: It is the effect of various kinds of context on metaphorical conceptualization. Of these, in this chapter I examine the following in some detail: (1) the immediate physical setting, (2) what we know about the major entities participating in the discourse, (3) the immediate cultural context, (4) the immediate social setting, and (5) the immediate linguistic context itself. In line with the suggestion in Chapter 4, I argue that we recruit conceptual materials for metaphorical purposes not only from bodily experience but also from all of these various contexts. Since the contexts can be highly variable, the metaphors used will often be variable, novel, and unconventional. The phenomenon can be observed in both everyday forms of language and literary texts. I discuss the former in the present chapter, while the latter, literary texts, are discussed in Chapter 7. I suggest furthermore that the issue raised in the previous paragraph also has to do with metaphorical creativity. By metaphorical creativity I mean the production and use of conceptual metaphors and/or their linguistic manifestations that are novel or unconventional (with the understanding that novelty and unconventionality are graded concepts that range from completely new and unconventional through more or less new and unconventional to well-worn, entrenched and completely conventional cases). It is the issue of the choice of such (mostly) creative metaphors in the everyday use of language that is the main focus of the present chapter. I will make a distinction here between global and local (or immediate) context, and I will suggest that it is primarily the latter, the local (immediate) context that is responsible for creativity in metaphorical conceptualization.

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The global context, as conceived here, corresponds to the general knowledge shared by a community (see Chapter 4) and to what was called culture 1 at the end of the previous chapter, while local context subsumes the particular factors that influence metaphorical conceptualization in a specific communicative situation (cf. Chapters 4 and 5).

Context-Induced Creativity

In recent years, a large number of scholars have criticized conceptual metaphor theory for a variety of reasons (e.g., Clausner and Croft, 1997; Deignan, 1999, 2005; Steen, 1999; Gevaert, 2001, 2005; Rakova, 2002; Cameron, 2003, 2007; Ritchie, 2003; Dobrovolskij and Piirainen, 2005; Semino, 2005; Pragglejaz Group, 2007; Stefanowitsch, 2007; Zinken, 2007). Perhaps the most significant element of this criticism was the suggestion that conceptual metaphor theory ignores the study of metaphor in the contexts in which metaphorical expressions actually occur, namely, in real, natural discourse. The claim is that the practitioners of “traditional” conceptual metaphor theory (i.e., Lakoff and Johnson and their followers) set up certain, what they call conceptual metaphors and exemplify them with groups of (mostly) invented metaphorical linguistic expressions. In this way, traditional researchers in conceptual metaphor theory fail to notice some essential aspects of metaphor and cannot account for phenomena that can be accounted for only if we investigate metaphors in real discourse. I have responded to several components of this criticism in some previous publications (Kövecses, 2005, 2008a, 2009a, 2011) and I do not wish to repeat my response here. Instead, I will take the advice of the critics seriously, look at some pieces of real discourse where metaphors are used, and see how what is taken to be “standard” (or traditional) conceptual metaphor theory can and should be modified to accommodate at least some of the criticism. One area that the study of real discourse can throw considerable light on is the issue of metaphorical creativity. Metaphorical creativity in discourse can involve a variety of distinct forms. In Metaphor in Culture (2005), I distinguished two types: creativity that is based on the source domain, on the one hand, and creativity that is based on the target, on the other. “Source-related” creativity can be of two kinds: “source-internal” and “source-external” creativity. Source-internal creativity involves cases that Lakoff and Turner (1989) describe as elaboration and extending, where unused source-internal conceptual materials are utilized to comprehend the target. For example, given the conventional DEATH IS SLEEP metaphor, we find in Hamlet’s soliloquy “To die to sleep? Perchance to dream!,” where dreaming is an extension of the source domain (Lakoff and Turner, 1989). “Source-external” cases of creativity operate with what I called the “range of the target” phenomenon, in which a particular target domain receives new, additional source domains in its conceptualization


(Kövecses, 2005). For instance, Ning Yu (1998) notes that the concept of HAPPINESS is conceptualized by means of the metaphor HAPPINESS IS FLOWERS IN THE HEART that is additional to other, more conventional source domains that are present both in Chinese and English. The type of creativity in discourse that is based on the target was also described by Kövecses (2005). In this type of creativity, a particular target that is conventionally associated with a source “connects back” to the source taking further knowledge structures from it. Mussolff (2001) provides several examples (reanalyzed by Kövecses, 2005) where metaphorical expressions, such as fire-exit, are selected from the source domain of BUILDING on the basis of target domain knowledge in the EUROPE IS A BUILDING metaphor, though they are not part of the conventional mappings. We can call this “target-induced” creativity. In the present chapter, I will suggest that there is yet another form of metaphorical creativity in discourse—creativity that is induced by the context in which metaphorical conceptualization takes place. This kind of creativity has not so far been systematically explored in the cognitive linguistic literature on metaphor. I term the creativity that is based on the context of metaphorical conceptualization “context-induced creativity” and the metaphors that result from the influence of the context on that conceptualization “context-induced metaphors.” In this chapter, I will distinguish five contextual factors that commonly produce unconventional and novel metaphors: (1) the immediate physical setting, (2) what we know about the major entities participating in the discourse, (3) the immediate cultural context, (4) the immediate social setting, and (5) the immediate linguistic context itself. There are surely others, but I will limit myself to the discussion of these five. In the next chapter, I will turn to how these same factors influence the use of metaphor in poetry. For the sake of a clearer exposition, I distinguish two basic kinds of context: global and local, as mentioned in Chapters 4 and 5. Again, by global context I mean the contextual factors that affect all members of a language community when they conceptualize something metaphorically, and by local context I mean the immediate contextual factors that apply to particular conceptualizers in specific communicative situations. In sum, my major concern in this chapter is not with the structure of novel conceptual metaphors, with the process of understanding novel metaphors, or with how people create complex novel blends online in discourse. My concern is with where people recruit the conceptual source materials from when they are engaged with all these phenomena. In other words, my main interest here is in the issue of motivation (conceptual licensing or sanctioning), and less so in structure, process, or meaning construction in metaphor. I define motivation as any of the bodily and contextual factors that trigger, prompt, or, simply facilitate the selection and use of particular conceptual metaphors or their linguistic manifestations. In other words, I think of motivation as graded phenomenon that can affect the conceptualizer with various degrees of strength.

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Where Metaphors Come From Global Contexts

Global contexts include a variety of different contextual factors. When we engage with the world and metaphorically conceptualize it, we unconsciously monitor and pick out certain details of it. This world consists of ourselves (our body), the physical environment, the physical and social aspects of the settings in which we act, and the broader cultural context. Since all of these aspects of the world can vary in many ways, the metaphors we use can vary in many ways. Let us see some examples for this phenomenon. The survey and the examples are based on Kövecses (2005). Several of these contextual factors were mentioned in Chapter 4, but I offer some (additional) examples for them here.


We can begin with the physical environment. There are differences in the physical environment in which people live, and because people are (mostly unconsciously) attuned to these differences, the metaphors that people speaking different languages and varieties of languages use will also vary. The physical environment includes the particular geography, landscape, fauna and flora, dwellings, other people, and so forth that speakers of a language or variety interact with on a habitual basis. A good test case of this suggestion is a situation in which a language, which was developed by speakers living in a certain kind of natural and physical environment, is moved by some of its speakers to a new and very different natural and physical environment. If this happens, we should expect to find differences between metaphorical conceptualization by speakers of the original language and conceptualization used by people who speak the “transplanted” version of the same language. For example, (American) English is a language that was moved to a new and very different physical environment, that is, to North America, where it developed a unique metaphorical language patterned after the new environment (Kövecses, 2000, 2005).

SOCIAL SETTING

Social factors can

play a similar role in shaping the overall metaphorical patterns of a community. One example of this is the distinction between men and women in all societies. Men’s and women’s metaphors may differ when they conceptualize aspects of the world. Annette Kolodny (1975, 1984) shows us that American men and women had significantly different metaphorical images of the frontier in the period between 1630 and 1860. Based on her careful examination of hundreds of literary and non-literary documents in the period, she points out that men thought of the frontier as a virgin land to be taken, whereas women thought of it as a garden to be cultivated.


CULTURAL SETTING

The cultural context means the unique and salient concepts and values that characterize particular (sub)cultures—together with the governing principles of a given culture or subculture. The governing principles and key concepts have special importance in (metaphorical) conceptualization because they permeate several general domains of experience for a culture or cultural group. This can be noticed notic ed in perfectly everyday concepts. They may have have an important role in distinguishing people’s habitual metaphorical thought across cultures or subcultures. For example, Frank Boers and Murielle Demecheleer (1997, 2001) suggested that the the concepts of HA HAT T and SHIP are more productive of metaphorical idioms in English than in French. And conversely, the concepts of SLEEVE and FOOD are more productive of metaphorical idioms in French than in English. They argue that this is because the former two concepts are relatively more salient for speakers of (British) English, while the latter two are relatively more salient for speakers speakers of Fr French. ench. DIFFERENTIAL MEMORY

An additional set of factors includes what we can call differential memory. What this means is the history—the major or minor events that occurred in the past of a society/culture, group, or individual. The memory of the events is coded into the language. Because of the past-oriented nature of language, many of the metaphors we use may reveal a certain time lag between our experiences of the world today and the experiences associated with the source domain in the past (Deignan, 2003). One of my students, Niki Köves (2002), did a survey of the metaphors Hungarians and Americans use for the concept of LIFE. Her survey showed that Hungarians primarily use the LIFE IS WAR and LIFE IS A COMPROMISE metaphors, whereas Americans most commonly employ the LIFE IS A PRECIOUS POSSESSION and LIFE IS A GAME metaphors. The issue obviously has to do with the peculiarities of Hungarian and American history. Hungarians have been in wars throughout their more than one thousand year old history as a nation and state, and had to struggle for their survival as they are wedged between powerful German-speaking and Slavic nations. Given this history, it is not surprising that for many Hungarians life is a struggle, and less of a game. With time, however, this habitual way of conceptualizing life, or any other concept, may change. DIFFERENTIAL CONCERNS AND INTERESTS

Finally, a set of causes that produces metaphor variation is what I termed dif ferential fer ential concerns and interests interests (Kövecses, 2005). An entire society may be characterized by certain concerns and interests. Americans, for example, are often

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said to be given to action, as opposed to passivity. (One well-known example of this is the preference for take over have in American English, as opposed to the preference for have over take in British English in phrases such as take a shower and have a shower, as shown by Wierzbicka (1988. See also Kövecses, 2000.) This trait may explain the heavy use of sports and game metaphors by Americans (e.g., to quarterback an operation, taken from American football). The claim here he re is not that only Americans have the game and sports metaphors, but that they have them for a more extensive range of target concepts than other nations. In other words, the reality (or maybe just the myth) of having a trait may give rise to a heavy reliance on a metaphorical source domain that is coherent with the trait.

Local Contexts

Metaphorical conceptualization is also affected by more immediate local conMetaphorical texts. These include the immediate physical setting, the knowledge about the main entities in the discourse, the immediate cultural context, the immediate social setting, and the immediate linguistic context. Local and global contexts are assumed here to form a continuum from the most immediate local contexts to the most general global ones. My strategy will be to first characterize the effect of these more local contexts on metaphorical conceptualization in everyday forms forms of language and then, in Chapter 7, to turn to how the same contexts can influence metaphorical conceptualization conceptualization in poetry poetry.. Some of the discussion of the various contextual effects on everyday metaphor use can also be found in Kövecses (2010a, b).

THE EFFECT OF IMMEDIATE PHYSICAL SETTING ON METAPHOR USE

The immediate physical physical setting can influence the selection and use of particular metaphors in discourse. The physical setting comprises, among possibly other things, the physical events and their consequences that make up or are part of the setting, the various aspects of the physical environm environment, ent, and the perceptual qualities that characterize the setting. I’ll briefly discuss an example for the first. In Chapter 4, we saw an example for how the perceptual qualities of the physical ph ysical setting can trigger the use of nov novel el metaphors and in Kövecses Kövecses (2005) I discuss a study by Boers (1999) on environmental conditions. In the present chapter, let me take an example that has to do with a physical event and its consequences. The influence of physical events and their consequences on metaphorical conceptualization is well demonstrated by a statement made by the American journalist who tra traveled veled to New New Orleans Orleans to do an interview with Fats Domino Domino,, a


famous New Orleans–based musician, two years after the devastation wreaked by hurricane Katrina, when the city of New Orleans was still struggling with many of the consequences of the hurricane. hurricane. The journalist comments: The 2005 hurricane capsized Domino’s life, though he’s loath to confess any inconvenience or misery outside of missing his social circle . . . (USA TODAY , 2007, September 21, Section 6B) The metaphorical statement “The 2005 hurricane capsized Domino’s life” is based on the general metaphor LIFE IS A JOURNEY and its more specific version LIFE IS A SEA JOURNEY. The SEA JOURNEY source domain is chosen probably because of the role of the sea in the hurricane. More importantly, it should be noted that the verb capsize is used (as opposed to, say, run aground ), ), though it is not a conventional linguistic manifestation of either the general JOURNEY or the more specific SEA JOURNEY source domains. I suggest that this verb is selected by the journalist as a result of the then (still) visible consequences in New Orleans of the hurricane as a devasta devastating ting physical event. event. The physical setting thus possibly triggers the extension of an existing conventional conventional conceptual metaphorr and causes the speaker/conceptualizer to choose a metaphor metapho metaphorical ical expression that best fits that setting. THE EFFECT OF KNOWLEDGE ABOUT MAJOR ENTITIES IN THE DISCOURSE ON METAPHOR USE

As we saw in Chapter 4, the main entities participating in discourse minimally include the speaker (conceptualizer), the hearer (addressee/conceptualizer), and the entity or process we talk about (topic). (topic). These can all al l influence the use of metaphor in discourse. I’ll discuss three such examples, involving the topic, the speaker/conceptualizer, and the addressee/conceptualizer—in this order. Knowledge about the topic frequently leads to novel and unconventional metaphors. I use “topic” not in the sense in which it is commonly used in metaphor theory in general (i.e., as a theoretical concept corresponding corresponding to the target domain in conceptual metaphor metaphor theory), but in the sense of any kind of know know-ledge or information that is explicitly or implicitly conveyed by a piece of discourse. If we have some special knowledge or information about the elements of the discourse, discourse, we can utilize that knowledge or information information for for purposes of metaphorical creativity, that is, to metaphorically conceptualize a certain target domain. (This means that what I call the topic here is, often, very close to what is termed the source domain in conceptual metaphor theory.) Particularly creative examples can be found in journalism. Consider the following newspaper headline: “Foot heads arms body.” We get an explanation of what this could possibly mean from the short letter sent in to the editor of The Times:

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Sir, The letters about odd headlines . . . reminded me of an all-time favourite. In the early 1980s Michael Foot became the leader of the Labour Party. He was also a co-founder of CND and pushed for nuclear disarmament. Mr Foot travelled travelled to Brussels B russels to chair a lobby l obby group in the European Parliament to construct construct a plan to get rid of the bomb as part of the European election ele ction policy poli cy.. From this came the headline “F “Foot oot heads arms body b ody.” .” (The Times, Letters to the Editor, Wednesday January 30, 2008, p. 16) Since the topic involves the various entities, such as Foot and disarmament and Mr.. Foot Mr Foot being the chair of the committee that deals with the issue of disarmament, the speaker/conceptualizer had the opportunity to deliberately create a humorous headline. In the previous case, the metaphor was selected and elaborated as a result of what the conceptualizer knows about the topic. It is also possible to find cases where the selection of a metaphor depends on knowledge about the conceptualizer himself or herself. What is especially intriguing about such cases is that the author’s (conceptualizer’s) knowledge about him- or herself does not need to be conscious. The next example, taken from my previous work (Kövecses, 2005) but reanalyzed here, demonstrates this possibility. As one would wou ld expect, one important source of such cases is the area of therap therapyy or psychological counseling. In a therapeutic context people commonly create novel metaphorss as a result of unique and traumatic life experiences. metaphor experiences. The metaphors that are created under these circumstances need not be consciously formed. The example comes from an article in the magazine A & U (March, (March, 2003) about photographic artist Frank Jump. Frank Jump photographs old painted mural advertisements in New York City. He has AIDS, but he has outlived his expected life span. His life and his art are intimately connected metaphorically. The conceptual metaphor operative here could be put as follows: SURVIVING AIDS DESPITE PREDICTIONS TO THE CONTRARY IS FOR THE OLD MURAL ADVERTISEMENTS TO SURVIVE THEIR EXPECTED

“LIFE SPAN.” At first, Jump was not consciously aware that he works within the

frame of a conceptual metaphor that relies on his condition. In his own words: In the beginning, I didn’t make the connection between the subject matter and my own sero-positivity. I was asked to be part of the Day Without Art exhibition a few years ago and didn’t think I was worthy—other artists’ work was much more HIV-specific HIV-specific.. . . . But my mentor said, “Don’t you you see the connection? You’re documenting something that was never intended to live this long. You never intended to live this long.” [p. 27; italics in the original] The mentor made the conceptual metaphor conscious for the artist. I believe something similar is happening in many cases of psychotherapy and counseling. It could be argued that it is the mentor mento r who conceptualizes conceptualiz es the situation for


the artist. This may be a possible interpretation, but, on the other hand, when Jump says “In the beginning, I didn’t make the connection between the subject matter and my own sero-positivity,” it is clear that the connection is in his unconscious and readily available to him as well. Obviously, the metaphor SURVIVING AIDS DESPITE PREDICTIONS TO THE CONTRARY IS FOR THE OLD MURAL ADVERTISEMENTS TO SURVIVE THEIR EXPECTED

“LIFE SPAN” is anything but a conventional conceptual metaphor. The metaphor

is created by Frank Jump as a novel analogy—the unconscious but nevertheless real analogy between surviving one’s expected life span as a person who has AIDS and the survival of the mural advertisements that were created to be visible on the walls of buildings in New York City for only a limited amount of time. In this case, (unconscious) self-knowledge leads the conceptualizer to find the appropriate analogy. The analogy is appropriate because the source and the target domains share schematic structural resemblance; namely, an entity existing longer than expected. The resulting metaphor(ical analogy) is novel and creative and it comes about as a result of what the conceptualizer knows about himself. Let us take another example of how the topic can influence the choice of novel metaphors in discourse. As we’ll see, the example is additionally interesting because it gives us some idea how the addressee may also be involved in the selection of metaphors by the speaker/conceptualizer. In the Comment section of The Times (January 30, 2008, p. 14), the author congratulates and offers advice to the newly elected head coach of the England football team. His or her specific recommendation (the name is not indicated) is that Fabio Capello, the new Italian head coach, should play David Beckham against Switzerland in an upcoming game at Wembley Stadium, despite the fact that Beckham had not played top-class football for several months at the time. If Beckham is given a chance to play, he will have played on the English national team 100 times, and this would be a nice way of saying good-bye to him as regards his career on the national team. The author of the article explains that he or she is aware that Beckham is not fully prepared for this last game on the national team, and writes: Beckham is 32. He has not played top-class football since November. Los Angeles Galaxy are sardines not sharks in the ocean of footy. How did the author arrive at the novel metaphors according to which the American football (soccer) team, the Los Angeles Galaxy, “are sardines not sharks in the ocean of footy”? In all probability, it is the author’s knowledge about David Beckham, the main topic of the discourse, that gives rise to the metaphors. The author (together with us) knows that Beckham plays for the Los Angeles Galaxy, a team located in Los Angeles, which, in turn, is a city on the Pacific Ocean, and the Pacific Ocean contains sardines and sharks. In somewhat more technical language, we could say that the mental frame for Beckham

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as a football player includes the name of the team that he plays for and the place where the team is located, which in turn evokes the frame of the Pacific Ocean. The frame for the Pacific Ocean in turn involves the various kinds of fish that live in that ocean. Of all these various kinds of fish, why are the Los Angeles Galaxy sardines and not sharks and why is football an ocean? With this question, I wish to indicate that the author’s knowledge about Beckham does not provide a full explanation of the novel metaphors used. It is a major part of the story, since it provides some motivation for the use of metaphors, but probably not the whole story. What we have to take into account additionally are some highly schematic conventional conceptual metaphors, such as THE SIZE OF SOCIAL GROUPS IS THE SIZE OF PHYSICAL ENTITIES and SOCIAL COMPETITION IS THE SURVIVAL BEHAVIOR OF ANIMALS. The former conceptual metaphor is extremely general and probably functions only as a very general constraint on which linguistic expression can actually be selected; the idea of the vastness of the world of football and the many teams participating in it should be conveyed through reference to some huge physical entity (such as the ocean). The latter conceptual metaphor seems to be a special case of the SOCIAL BEHAVIOR IS ANIMAL BEHAVIOR metaphor. In the world of business competition, English has the conventional metaphorical expression: big fish eat small fish. Similarly, in football some teams are very powerful (the sharks), but most of them are weak (the sardines) in relation to the powerful ones. The expression big fish eat small fish and the underlying conceptual metaphor may in part be responsible for the author using the words sardines and sharks for some of the strong teams and for the much larger number of weak teams in the world of football. The same article also offers us a glimpse of how knowledge about the addressee can give rise to novel metaphors in discourse. There are two examples in the article that point in that direction. The first one reads: “Dear Signor Capello” (my italics). This is the first sentence of the article, with which the author addresses the intended recipient of the message—the new Italian head coach of the English team, Fabio Capello. Although the use of the word Signor could not be interpreted as a metaphor, the fact that the English author addresses the recipient ( Signor Capello), an Italian, partly in Italian is an indication that, in general, the knowledge about the addressee plays a role in how we select linguistic items for our particular purposes in the discourse. The second example is as follows: “Beckham is a good footballer and a nice man: e una bella figura” (italics in the original). This example comes much closer to being a metaphor, in that a man (Beckham) is compared to a figure, a shape—a generic word for geometric forms. In addition, the comparison is given in Italian, which shows that the language of the addressee must have influenced the choice of the metaphor. More generally, a part of what we know about the addressee in all probability plays a role in the selection of the metaphor.


Personal Concern as a Special Case

As indicated in Chapter 4, a further factor that plays a role in producing differential experience and, hence, differential metaphors, includes the differential concerns or interests that speakers/conceptualizers may have in their lives. We can think of such differential personal concerns as a special case of the knowledge that speakers/conceptualizers have of themselves. Let us look at how this can influence our choice of metaphor in discourse. Intense professional interest may lead a person to habitually think about and express target domains in terms of source domains that are based on one’s professional interests. A good way of studying this form of variation is to look at letters in newspapers that are sent in to editors by readers. In Hungarian newspapers the authors of the letters often mention their profession. Consider the following letter by a Hungarian electric engineer concerning the issue of Hungary’s new relationship with Europe in the late 1990s. (The Hungarian quote is followed by my more or less literal translation of the original into English, taken from Kövecses, 2005.): Otthon vagyunk ,

otthon lehetünk Európában. Szent István óta bekapcsolódtunk ebbe a szellemi áramkörbe, és változó intenzitással, de azóta benne vagyunk—akkor is, ha különféle erők időnként, hosszabb-rövidebb ideig, megpróbáltak kirángatni belőle. (italics in the original; Magyar Nemzet [Hungarian Nation], June 12, 1999) We are, we can be at home in Europe. Since Saint Stephen we have been inte grated/ connected to this intellectual/spiritual electric circuit, and with varying degrees of intensity, but we have been in it—even though various powers, for more or less time, have tried to yank us out of it (my translation). The target domain is Hungary’s new relationship to Europe in the wake of major political changes in the country in the 1990s. The interesting question is what the source domain is. As the passage makes it clear, many of the words used reflect the professional interest of the author of the letter: be integrated/connected, electric circuit, with varying degrees of intensity are expressions that reveal electricity and electric circuitry as a source domain in the passage. The electric engineer reasons on the basis of his knowledge of this domain. The concept of electricity and electric circuitry as a source domain is not obvious or inevitable for this target and is certainly not the only one that could be used. My claim is that it is made available and its use is facilitated by the professional interest of the person who does the thinking about this particular target domain. Doctors, teachers, athletes, scientists, and so on often take their source domains from their fields of activity to characterize and reason about the various target domains they encounter, talk, and think about.

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Where Metaphors Come From THE EFFECT OF THE IMMEDIATE CULTURAL CONTEXT ON METAPHOR USE

Consider the following example taken from the San Francisco Chronicle, in which Bill Whalen, a professor of political science in Stanford and an advisor to Arnold Schwarzenegger in his campaign, uses metaphorical language concerning the actor who later became the governor of California: “Arnold Schwarzenegger is not the second Jesse Ventura or the second Ronald Reagan, but the first Arnold Schwarzenegger,” said Bill Whalen, a Hoover Institution scholar who worked with Schwarzenegger on his successful ballot initiative last year and supports the actor’s campaign for governor. “He’s a unique commodity—unless there happens to be a whole sea of immigrant body builders who are coming here to run for office. This is ‘Rise of the Machine[s],’ not ‘Attack of the Clones.’” (San Francisco Chronicle, A16, August 17, 2003) Of interest in this connection are the metaphors He’s a unique commodity and particularly This is “ Rise of the Machine[s],” not “ Attack of the Clones.” The first one is based on a completely conventional conceptual metaphor: PEOPLE ARE COMMODITIES, as shown by the very word commodity to describe the actor. The other two are highly unconventional and novel. What makes Bill Whalen produce these unconventional metaphors and what allows us to understand them? There are, I suggest, two reasons. First, and more obviously, it is because Arnold Schwarzenegger played in the first of these movies. In other words, what sanctions the use of these metaphorical expressions has to do with the knowledge that the conceptualizer (Whalen) has about the topic of the discourse (Schwarzenegger), as discussed in a previous section. Second, and less obviously but more importantly here, he uses the metaphors because these are movies that, at the time of speaking (i.e., 2003), everyone knew about in California and the United States. In other words, they were part and parcel of the immediate cultural context. Significantly, the second movie, Attack of the Clones does not feature Schwarzenegger, but it is the key to understanding the contrast between individual and copy that Whalen is referring to. Given this knowledge, people can figure out what Whalen intended to say, which was that Schwarzenegger is a unique individual and not one of a series of look-alikes. But figuring this out may not be as easy and straightforward as it seems. After all, the metaphor Rise of the Machine[s] does not clearly and explicitly convey the idea that Schwarzenegger is unique in any sense. (As a matter of fact, the mention of machines goes against our intuitions of uniqueness. Whalen must have been aware of this when he uses the singular form of machine, which in the original title occurs in the plural.) However, we get this meaning via two textual props in the text. The first one is a series of statements by Whalen: “Arnold Schwarzenegger is not the second Jesse Ventura or


the second Ronald Reagan, but the first Arnold Schwarzenegger” and “He’s a unique commodity—unless there happens to be a whole sea of immigrant body builders who are coming here to run for office.” What seems to be the case here is that the speaker emphasizes the idea of individuality before he uses the MACHINE metaphor. But not even this prior emphasis would be sufficient by itself. Imagine that the text stops with the words “. . . This is ‘Rise of the Machine.’” I think most native speakers would be baffled and have a hard time understanding what Whalen intended to say in this last sentence. Therefore, in order to fully understand the discourse we badly need the second textual prop, which is: “not ‘Attack of the Clones.’” It is against the background of this phrase that we understand what the metaphorical expression Rise of the Machine[s] might possibly mean. THE EFFECT OF THE IMMEDIATE SOCIAL SETTING ON METAPHOR USE

When we use metaphors, we use them in social contexts as well. The social context, similar to the cultural one, can be extremely variable. It can involve anything from the social relationships that obtain between the participants of the discourse through the gender roles of the participants to the various social occasions in which the discourse takes place. Let us take an example for the last possibility from the American newspaper USA TODAY . As mentioned previously, in 2007 the newspaper carried an article about Fats Domino, one of the great living musicians based in flood-stricken New Orleans. In the article, the journalist describes in part Domino’s life after Katrina—the hurricane that destroyed his house and caused a great deal of damage to his life and that of many other people in New Orleans. The subtitle of the article reads: The rock “n” roll pioneer rebuilds his life—and on the new album “Goin” Home,” his timeless music. (USA TODAY , 2007, September 21, Section 6B) How can we account for the use of the metaphor “ rebuilds his life” in this text? We could simply suggest that this is an instance of the LIFE IS A BUILDING conceptual metaphor and that whatever meaning is intended to be conveyed by the expression is most conventionally conveyed by this particular conceptual metaphor and this particular metaphorical expression. But then this may not entirely justify the use of the expression. There are potentially other conceptual metaphors (and corresponding metaphorical expressions) that could also be used to achieve a comparable semantic effect. Two that readily come to mind include the LIFE IS A JOURNEY and the LIFE IS A MACHINE conceptual metaphors. We could also say that x set out again on his/her path or that after his/her life broke down, x got it to work again or restarted it, or something of the kind. These and similar metaphors would enable the speaker/conceptualizer and the hearer to come to the interpretation that the idea of rebuilding activates.

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However, of the potentially possible choices it is the LIFE IS A BUILDING metaphor is selected for the purpose. In all probability, this is because, at the time of the interview, Domino was also in the process of rebuilding his house that was destroyed by the hurricane in 2005. If this is correct, it can be suggested that the social situation (rebuilding his house) triggered, or facilitated, the choice of the conceptual metaphor LIFE IS A BUILDING. In other words, a real-world instance of a source domain is more likely to lead to the choice of a source concept of which it is an instance than to that of a source domain of which it is not. In this sense, the social setting may play a role in the selection of certain preferred conceptual metaphors, and hence of certain preferred metaphorical expressions in discourse. In such cases, the emerging general picture seems to be as follows: There is a particular social setting and there is a particular target meaning that needs to be activated. If the meaning can be activated by means of a metaphorical mapping that fits the actual social setting, speakers/conceptualizers will prefer to choose that mapping (together with the linguistic expressions that are based on the mapping). More simply, if the actual social setting involves an element that is an instance of an appropriate source domain, speakers are likely to use that source domain. THE EFFECT OF THE IMMEDIATE LINGUISTIC CONTEXT ON METAPHOR USE

Sometimes it is the immediate linguistic context that plays a role in the selection of novel metaphors. Consider the following text: When the Electoral Commission came to make its choice between referring the case to the police and taking no action it was this defence, described by an authoritative source as showing “contempt” for the law, which helped to tilt the balance – and Mr Hain – over the edge. (The Times, Friday January 25, 2008, News 7) The metaphorical expressions that are relevant here are tilt the balance and [tilt] Mr Hain over the edge. The second metaphorical expression is elliptical in the text, but we can easily supply the word tilt to make the sentence complete. Why can we do this? We can do it, of course, because the word tilt that was used in the first expression also fits the second. We keep it in memory and since it fits, we can supply it again. Let us look at some of the details of how this might happen. The metaphorical expression tilt the balance is a conventional one and is a linguistic example of the metaphor UNCERTAINTY IS BALANCE ( OF THE SCALES) (and CERTAINTY IS LACK OF BALANCE ( OF THE SCALES). In the metaphor, making a choice (i.e., eliminating uncertainty) corresponds to tilting the balance. The second expression, tilt someone over the edge, is much less conventional than the first. The question is why the word tilt gets selected in the second one besides


the fact that it (the word form) is still in memory. Clearly, it has to fit, but why does it fit? In the second expression the relevant conceptual metaphor is LOSS OF RATIONAL/MORAL CONTROL IS LOSS OF PHYSICAL CONTROL, such as PHYSICAL FALL (INTO A (DEEP) HOLE). The cause of the loss of rational/moral control is the same as the cause that made the commission arrive at a decision; namely, “showing ‘contempt’ for the law.” There are many linguistic expressions that could be used to convey the idea “to cause someone to fall down (into a hole),” including push, drive, force, jolt, nudge, poke, prod, propel, shove, press, butt, and so on. Of these, the most conventional ones are certainly push and drive; both of which occur in the idiom push/drive someone over the edge. However, in the discourse the author uses tilt, which is an additional but somewhat unmotivated possibility to express the idea of causing someone to physically fall down (into a hole). What makes it acceptable and natural, though, is that it fits the metaphor (no matter how unconventionally), on the one hand, and that it is elicited by the word used in the previous linguistic metaphor. In this manner, the phonetic shape of an expression in discourse can function as an elicitor of a metaphorically used expression in the same discourse, provided that the condition of fitting the required conceptual metaphor is also met. Pun as a Special Case

Mental, or conceptual, frames play a crucial role in the use of metaphors in discourse (see Sullivan, 2013). The frames can be relatively stable conceptual domains or they can be temporary conceptual structures that emerge in the course of discourse. In this latter case, we call them “mental spaces” (Fauconnier, 1985/1994). Since particular meanings and the words we use to activate them can be associated with a variety of different frames, the choice of such words may evoke several different frames, and one of these may be metaphorical. This allows us to think of puns as being dependent on multiple frames and the use of frames in the linguistic context. In other words, I suggest that, in many cases, some puns (i.e., the metaphor-based ones) are a special case of how the linguistic context influences our use of metaphors in discourse. Puns are conceptual structures that are characterized by several distinct types of frames that are evoked simultaneously (see also Goatly, 1997; Koller, 2004; Semino, 2008). The frames can be literal, metonymic, or metaphoric. One of the common cases of puns involves a name for a person and a distinct meaning that belongs to an entirely different frame. As an example, let us take the name Fats Domino, whose name came up several times in the previous sections. We find the following statement in the article mentioned previously: Getting clearances from participants’ labels proved taxing, but artists were enthusiastic. “We call it the Domino effect,” Taylor says. ( USA TODAY , 2007, September 21, Section 7B)

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The expression Domino effect is a pun that is based on several conceptual mechanisms. First, there is the name Domino that stands for the person, based on the metonymy NAME FOR THE PERSON. Second, there is a conventional conceptual metaphor at work: CAUSAL CHAINS ARE DOMINO CHAINS (ONE DOMINO COLLAPSING CAUSING THE OTHERS TO COLLAPSE ). Since Fats Domino is the name of this person and since the concept DOMINO is a part of the source domain, the name triggers the conventional conceptual metaphor CAUSAL CHAINS ARE DOMINO CHAINS, where the effect of one domino collapsing causes the other dominoes to collapse. The specific target domain of the metaphor STAR SINGERS SIGNING UP TO CONTRIBUTE A SONG TO THE ALBUM must also be similar in its schematic structure to the dominoes causing each other to collapse. The similarity exists, according to the author, because one star influenced another to sign up and contribute. This is one kind of causal chain. Thus there are two simultaneous conditions on the activation of the DOMINO metaphor—the source triggered by both the name and the metaphorical analogy. However, they are not equally strong conditions. The similarity constraint could work by itself for the speaker to come up with the metaphor. In general, this kind of structural similarity licenses the use of the source. The name alone, that is, without the similarity, would not be sufficient to trigger the metaphor. However, it appears to play a role in facilitating the selection of the particular source domain of DOMINOES from among other viable source domains for CAUSAL CHAINS with this particular effect. In other words, the selection of the source domain as triggered by the name in the context does not really depend on the name here (it is only facilitated by it) and, for this reason, for the speaker to rely on the name is somewhat redundant. This kind of redundancy can function as a source of humor, such as in this case. (On similar cases and humor in general, see Chapter 8.)

The Combined Effect of Factors on Metaphor Use

For the sake of clarity of analysis, I showed the relevance of each of the factors to the selection of discourse metaphors one by one. But this does not mean that in reality (i.e., in real discourse situations) they occur in an isolated fashion. As a matter of fact, it is reasonable to expect them to co-occur in real discourse. For example, a person’s concerns, or interests, as a factor may combine with additional knowledge about himself or herself, as well as the topic of the discourse, and the three can, in this way, powerfully influence how the conceptualizer will express himself or herself metaphorically. The next and final example demonstrates this possibility in a fairly clear way. When I began working on this book in 2008, there was heated debate in Hungarian society about whether the country should adopt a health insurance system, similar to that in the United States, based on competing privatelyowned health insurance companies, rather than stay with a single, state-owned


and state-regulated health-care system. As part of the debate, many people volunteered their opinion on this issue in a variety of media, the Internet being one of them. As I was following the debate on the Internet, I found an article that can serve, in my view, as a good demonstration of a situation in which one’s use of metaphors in real discourse is informed by a combination of contextual factors, not just a single one. A Hungarian doctor (Dr. Kullman Tamás) published a substantial essay in one of the Hungarian news networks about the many potential undesirable consequences of the proposed new privatized system. He outlines and introduces what he has to say in his essay in the following way (given first in the Hungarian original): Dolgozatom a gondolkodási időben született. Célkitűzése a törvény várható hatásainak elemzése. Módszereiben az orvosi gondolkodást követi. A magyar egészségügyet képzeli a beteg helyzetébe. Kezelőorvosnak a kormányt tekinti, és konzulensként a szakért őket, illetve a szerzőt magát kéri fel. A prognózis meghatározás feltételének tekinti a helyes diagnózist. Végül röviden megvizsgálja van-e alternatív kezelési lehetőség. (Retrieved from http://mkdsz.hu/content/view/8480/207/, February 2, 2008) Here’s an almost literal translation of the text into English: This paper was born in the period when people think about the issue. Its objective is to analyze the expected effects of the law. In its methods, it follows the way doctors think. It imagines Hungarian health care as the patient. It takes the government as the attending physician, and invites experts and the author [of the article] himself to be the consultants. It considers the correct diagnosis to be the precondition for predicting the prognosis. Finally it briefly examines if there is an alternative possibility for treatment. Unless the author of the article deliberately wishes to provide an illustration for the use of metaphors in real discourse (and I doubt that it is the case), this is a remarkable example of how a combination of contextual factors can influence the way we often speak/write and think metaphorically. First, the author of the article is a doctor himself, second, we can assume he has a great deal of interest in his job (he took the trouble of writing the article), and, third, he is writing about Hungarian health care. The first of these is concerned with what I called knowledge about the speaker/conceptualizer; the second corresponds to one’s personal concerns, or interests; and the third involves what was called the topic

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of the discourse. It seems that the three factors are jointly responsible for the way the author uses metaphors in the discourse (and, given this example, for how he, in addition, actually structures what he says). Needless to say, many other combinations of factors can be imagined and expected to co-occur in and influence the use of metaphors in real discourse.

What Are the Sources of Metaphorical Creativity?

The “standard” version of conceptual metaphor theory operates with largely uncontextualized or minimally contextualized linguistic examples of hypothesized conceptual metaphors. The conceptual metaphors are seen as constituted by sets of mappings between the source and the target domains. The mappings are assumed to be fairly static conceptual structures. The linguistic metaphors that are motivated by such static correspondences are entrenched, conventional expressions that eventually find their way to good, detailed dictionaries of languages. Dictionaries and the meanings (either literal or figurative) they contain represent what is static and highly conventional about particular languages. In this view it is problematic to account for metaphorical creativity. How does this somewhat simplified and rough characterization of “standard” conceptual metaphor theory change in light of the work reported in this chapter? Apart from some sporadic studies (such as Aitchison, 1987; Koller 2004; Kövecses, 2005; Semino, 2008; Benczes, 2010, 2013), the issue of contextinduced metaphorical creativity has not been systematically investigated. A considerable portion of novel and unconventional metaphorical language seems to derive from such contextual factors as the immediate linguistic context, knowledge about discourse participants, physical setting, and the like. It remains to be seen how robust the phenomenon is and whether it deserves serious further investigation. Based on an informal collection of data from a variety of newspapers, it appears that the context provides a major source of motivation for the use of many novel metaphors. Many of these metaphors are clearly not, in Grady’s (1999) classification, either resemblance or correlationbased cases. They seem to have a unique status, in that they are grounded in the context in which metaphorical conceptualization is taking place. Many of the examples of unconventional metaphoric language we have seen in this chapter could simply not be explained without taking into account a variety of contextual factors. My claim is that in addition to the well-studied conceptual metaphors and metaphorical analogies used to convey meanings and achieve rhetorical functions in discourse, conceptualizers are also very much aware and take advantage of the various factors that make up the immediate context in which metaphorical conceptualization takes place. (A similar idea can be found in the work of Brandt and Brandt, 2005, and in the relevance-theoretic study of metaphor by Sperber and Wilson, 2008.)


As noted in Chapter 4, in some cases, the contextual factors will simply lead to the emergence and use of well-worn, conventional metaphorical expressions, but in others they may lead conceptualizers to choose genuinely novel or unconventional metaphorical expressions. The core idea is that we try to be coherent with most of the factors that regulate our conceptualization of the world. A major source of the pressure of coherence is our body—the body on which “correlational” metaphors are based. If there is a group of metaphors (such as HAPPY IS UP) that are dedicated to the activation of particular meanings and that are grounded in embodied experience, that embodiment may lead to the use of certain metaphorical expressions that can activate the intended meanings. Such embodied, correlation-based conceptual metaphors tend to be stable both across time and cultures (but see, Kövecses, 2005, for a more nuanced view). The second source of the pressure of coherence comes from the context in which metaphorical conceptualization takes place. People produce metaphors inspired by the contextual factors we saw in this chapter and Chapter 4. This means that speakers try (and tend) to be coherent with various aspects of the communicative situation in the process of creating metaphorical ideas. Many context-induced metaphorical expressions appear to be novel and unconventional. This is because the (immediate) context of discourse varies from one discourse situation to another, and with it the linguistic metaphors that are based on the context will also vary.

Conclusions

Metaphorical creativity in discourse can involve several distinct cases: (1) the case in which a novel source domain is applied or novel elements of the source are applied to a given target domain (source-induced creativity); (2) the case in which elements of the target originally not involved in a set of constitutive mappings are utilized and matching counterparts are found in the source (target-induced creativity); (3) the case of conceptual integration in which elements from both source and target are combined in new ways (creativity resulting from conceptual integration); and (4) the case in which various contextual factors lead to novel or unconventional metaphors (context-induced creativity). This chapter examined the interrelations among the notions of metaphor, discourse, and creativity. Several important connections were found with respect to contextual factors in the creation of metaphors—either conceptual or linguistic. Conceptualizers seem to rely on a number of contextual factors when they use metaphors in discourse. The ones that were discussed in the present chapter include (1) the immediate physical setting, (2) the knowledge conceptualizers have about themselves and the topic, (3) the immediate cultural context (dubbed culture 2 in the previous chapter), (4) the immediate social context, and (5) the immediate linguistic context. Since all of these are shared by the

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speaker and hearer (the conceptualizers), the contextual factors also facilitate the development and mutual understanding of the discourse. The view that many metaphors in real discourse emerge from context has implications for conceptual metaphor theory. The most recent and dominant version of conceptual metaphor theory emphasizes the importance of primary metaphors that arise from certain well-motivated correlations between bodily and subjective experiences (e.g., KNOWING AS SEEING) (see, e.g., Grady, 1997a, b; Lakoff and Johnson, 1999; Kövecses, 2013). These metaphors are, in turn, seen as having a neural basis (see Feldman, 2006 Lakoff, 2008). In the view that I am proposing, in addition to such metaphors, there are what I call “contextinduced metaphors” that derive not from some such correlations in experience but from the context of metaphorical conceptualization. A good example of such a metaphor is the one used for Schwarzenegger above: The Rise of the Machine[s]. There is no resemblance between Schwarzenegger and the film title, and the metaphor is not based on some bodily correlation either; it derives from the cultural context—that is, it is a context-induced metaphor. In addition to being a “new” class of metaphors, the importance of context-induced metaphors lies in revealing an aspect of human creativity in conceptualizing the world. However, to some, to say that such metaphors represent a new class may be overstating the results of this chapter. It may be suggested that even though there is not always a bodily basis, there is always some resemblance on which metaphors are based. In this case, I would argue in the following way: Potential resemblances between entities are legion, but what helps (triggers, prompts, etc.) us choose a source domain would be some contextual factor. If this is what is really the case, the weaker conclusion would be that what I call contextinduced metaphors constitute a subclass of resemblance metaphors. All in all, then, in answer to the question posed at the beginning of the chapter, I suggest that we recruit conceptual materials for metaphorical purposes not only from bodily experience (or some resemblance) but also from a variety of contexts in which we speak, think, and act metaphorically. Since the contexts can be highly variable, the metaphors used will often be variable, novel, and unconventional. It is especially the immediate local context that is responsible for metaphorical creativity.

7

Context and Poetic Metaphor

In More Than Cool Reason Lakoff and Turner (1989) make two very important claims. One is that poets share with everyday people most of the conceptual metaphors they use in poetry and, second, as mentioned in the previous chapter, metaphorical creativity in poetry is the result of four common conceptual devices that poets use in manipulating otherwise shared conceptual metaphors. These include the devices of elaboration, extension, questioning, and combining. However, others have shown that these cognitive devices, or strategies, exist not only in poetic language but also in more ordinary forms of language use, such as journalism (see, e.g., Jackendoff and Aaron, 1991 Semino, 2008). Moreover, it has been noticed that not all cases of the creative use of metaphor in poetry are the result of such cognitive devices. Mark Turner proposed that in many cases poetry and literature in general make use of what he and Fauconnier call “blends,” in which various elements from two or more spaces, domains, or frames, can be conceptually fused, or integrated (see, e.g., Turner, 1996; Fauconnier and Turner, 2002; Chapter 2). I will propose that to be able to account for an even fuller range of potentials of metaphorical creativity in poetry, we need to go still further. I will suggest that a more complete account of the poetic use of metaphor requires that we look at the possible role of context in which poets create poetry. I claim that poets work under the same conceptual pressures (the pressure of coherence) as ordinary people in the creation of novel metaphors and that the effect of context may be in part responsible for the creative use of metaphor in poetry. Let me now clarify what I mean by context in poetry. Context in Poetry

Context can, essentially, be used in poetry in two ways: 1. Poets may describe the context in which they create poetry. 2. They may use context as a means of talking about something else.

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When the first is the case, we get straightforward examples of describing a scene, such as in Matthew Arnold’s Dover Beach: The sea is calm to-night. The tide is full, the moon lies fair Upon the straits,- on the French coast, the light Gleams and is gone; the cliffs of England stand, Glimmering and vast, out in the tranquil bay. Come to the window, sweet is the night-air! (Retrieved from http://www.artofeurope.com/arnold/arn1.htm)

However, from the perspective of poetic metaphors and the study of particular poems, much more interesting are the cases where this more or less literally conceived context is used metaphorically to express meanings that are not normally considered part of the meaning of the context as described. Using conceptual metaphor theory, we can say that the context can function as the source domain and the meanings to be expressed by means of the source domain function as the target. The exciting question in such cases is: What is the meaning (or, what are the meanings) that the dominantly literally conceived source (i.e., the context) is intended to convey? Consider the continuation of the Arnold poem: Only, from the long line of spray Where the sea meets the moon-blanched land, Listen! You hear the grating roar Of pebbles which the waves suck back, and fling, At their return, up the high strand, Begin, and cease, and then again begin, With tremulous cadence slow, and bring The eternal note of sadness in. (Retrieved from http://www.artofeurope.com/arnold/arn1.htm)

Although the description of the context continues, there is a clear sense in the reader that the poem is not primarily about depicting the physical location and events that occur around the poet/observer. Indeed, the last line (“and bring the eternal note of sadness in”) makes this meaning explicit; the coming in and going out of the waves convey an explicitly stated sadness. And of course we know that waves cannot actually bring in sadness or notes of sadness —they can only be metaphorically responsible for our sad mood when we hear the tremulous cadence slow. And this sense of sadness is reinforced in the next stanza: Sophocles long ago Heard it on the Aegean, and it brought Into his mind the turbid ebb and flow Of human misery; we


Find also in the sound a thought, Hearing it by this distant northern sea. (Retrieved from http://www.artofeurope.com/arnold/arn1.htm)

In sum, then, a poet can describe a context (scene) in which he or she writes a poem, or he or she can use the context (scene) (which functions as a source domain) to talk about things that go beyond or are outside (the meanings evoked by the description of) the context (scene) he or she is involved in (which functions as the target domain). My concern is with this second use of context, or scene. scene. The notion of context is a complex one due to its qualitative variety, on the one hand, and to its space and time dimensions, on the other. The kind of context that was considered so far was the physical context, or environment, but there are several others. The notion of context in addition includes the linguistic, intertextual, cultural, social contexts, and the main entities of the discourse, such as the speaker, hearer, and the topic, as described in Chapter 4. As regards the space dimension of context, we can distinguish between local and global contexts that indicate the endpoints of a continuum from local to global (see Chapter 6). Finally, we can distinguish between contexts that apply to the present time at one end and those that reach back in time, on the other. The contexts that are global and “timeless” are less interesting for my present concern in this chapter because they provide an extremely general frame of reference for whatever we say or think metaphorically, or whatever poets write and think metaphorically. My interest is in the most immediate contexts— physically,, linguistic physically li nguistically ally,, intertextually, inte rtextually, culturally, socially, spatially, spatially, and temporally. The assumption is that it is these kinds of immediate contexts that most powerfully and most creatively shape the use of metaphors in poetry. Let me now take the various types of context and provide an illustration for how they shape the use of metaphors in a select set of poems. In presenting the contextual factors influencing the poetic use of metaphor metaphors, s, I follow follow the same order as in Chapter 6 in the discussion of local contexts in the everyday use of metapho metaphorical rical language.

Physical Context

Since I began with the physical context above, let me take this kind of context first and see how it can influence the creative use of metaphors in poetry. For an illustration, let us now continue with the Arnold poem: The sea of Faith Was once, too, at the full, and round earth’s shore Lay like the folds of a bright girdle furled. But now I only hear Its melancholy, long, withdrawing roar,

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Where Metaphors Come From Retreating, to the breath Retreating, Of the night-wind, down the vast edges drear And naked shingles of the world. (Retrieved from http://www.artofeurope.com/arnold/arn1.htm)

At work in this stanza are two conceptual metaphors: HEALTH IS WHOLENESS and PERFECTION/COMPLETENESS IS ROUNDNESS, as indicated by the expressions “at the full ” (wholeness) and “and round earth’s shore” (roundness). The stanza, we understand, is about the health and perfection of the human condition until the coming of the changes that were happening at the time: the changes to the established order of the world in which religion played a major role. These two extremely general metaphors can be instantiated (and could be instantiated by Arnold) in many different ways. The question arises why they are made conceptually-linguistically manifest in the particular way they are; that is, by the metaphor “the sea of Faith.” This metaphor metaphor assumes the conceptual metaphors (CHRISTIAN) FAITH IS THE SEA and PEOPLE ARE THE LAND. The sea was once full and covered the land all around, and in the same way Christian faith provided people with a spiritual health (HEALTH IS WHOLENESS) and a perfect state state of the human condition (PERFECTION IS ROUNDNESS), unlike the situation in which Arnold wrote the poem. In addition, the full cover of faith protected people from the dangers of the new times that now threaten a faithless world. These ideas were given expression in these particular ways, we can safely assume, because of what Arnold saw before him at the time of creating the poem: the ebb and flow of the sea. As the sea retreats, that is, as faith disappears, the world becomes a less healthy and less perfect place, unprotected by faith.

Knowledge about the Main Entities of Discourse

We can distinguish several major entities of poetic discourse: the speaker (poet), the topic, and the hearer, or addressee (audience). (In what follows I ignore all the difficulties in identifying the speaker with the poet and the addressee with the “real audience.” audienc e.” Such distinctions distincti ons are not directly relevant to the main argument of the present chapter.) chapter.) SPEAKER/POET

The idea that the general physical, biological, mental, emotional, and so forth condition, or situation, of a poet can influence the way a poet writes poetry is well known and is often taken into account in the appreciation of poetry. Dickinson is a well-studied case, as discussed, for example, by Margaret Freeman (see, e.g., Freeman, 1995, 2000, 2007) and James Guthrie (1998). Guthrie has this to say on the issue:


. . . I propose to concentrate on the fact of illness itself as a governing factor in Dickinson’s development as a poet. We are already accustomed to thinking about ways in which illness or deformity modulate the registers of expression we hear while reading Milton, Keats, Emily Bronte, Lord Byron. For For Dickinson, illness i llness was a formative experience experienc e as well, one which shaped her entire poetic methodology from perception to inscription and which very likely shook the foundations of her faith. Reading Dickinson’s poems in the full knowledge and belief that, while writing them, she was suffering acutely from a seemingly irremediable illness renders many of them recuperable as almost diaristic records of a rather ordinary person’s courageous struggle against profound adversity. (Guthrie, 1998: 4–5) Along similar lines, I suggest that a poet’s physical condition, especially poor health, can have an effect on the way he or she metaphorically conceptualizes the subject matter he or she writes about. In my terminology, this is how self-knowledge of one’s situation as a contextual factor can often lead to the creative use of metaphors by poets. Let us take one of Dickinson’s poems as a case in point: I reckon reckon – when I count coun t it all – First – Poets – Then the Sun – Then Summer – Then the Heaven of God – And then – the List is done – But, looking back – the First so seems To Comprehend the Whole – The Others look a needless Show – So I write – Poets – All – Their Summer – lasts l asts a Solid Year – They can afford a Sun The East – would deem extravagant extravagant – And if the Further Heaven – Be Beautiful as they prepare prepare For Those who worship Them – It is too difficult a Grace – To justify the t he Dream – (Retrieved from http://poetry.poetryx.com/poems/2520/)

The question that I’m asking here is how Dickinson’s optical illness is transformed fo rmed into metaphorical patterns in her poetry in general and in this poem in particular. I would propose the following analysis that fits my interpretation of the poem. (However, others may have a very different interpretation that may require a very different conceptual analysis.) In my interpretation, the poem is about poetic creativity—the issue of what inspires a poet to write poetry. Dickinson uses the following conceptual

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metaphor to talk about it:

POETIC CREATIVITY IS A NEW WAY OF SEEING

(AS

A

The mappings, or correspondences, that make up the metaphor are as follows (the mappings go from source to target): RESULT OF THE SUMMER SUN).

summer sun new way of seeing

productive period → inspiration → be being ing poetically creative (i.e., coming up with a poem) →

An interesting property of the first mapping is that the literal summer stands metonymically for the literal year and the metaphorical summer stands for “always.” Thus, poets are always creative; they have a year-long summer. A second metaphor that Dickinson relies on is POEMS ARE HEAVENS. In this metaphor, the mappings are: further heaven worshippers God

→

poem → people reading poetry → poet

As an important additional mapping in this metaphor, we also have: God’s grace → poet’s inspiration Unlike the previous metaphor, where poetic inspiration is metaphorically equated with the sun, it i t is God’s grace that corresponds to the poet’s inspiration in this second metaphor. Dickinson’s inspiration, however, is a difficult one: it is her optical illness. She writes her poetry by relying on, or making use of, her illness.. This is illness i s a difficult grace to accept. In other words, her bodily condition of having impaired vision is put to use in an extraordinary way in this poem by Dickinson. Other poets may make use of their physical condition, or self-knowledge, in different ways. I believe it would be difficult to make generalizations about the precise ways in which self-knowledge of this kind is used by poets. At the same time, this contextual factor may explain some of the apparently strange uses of metaphor in the works of poets.

TOPIC AND ADDRESSEE

For an illustration of how the addressee addressee and the topic can influence the choice of a poet’s metaphors, let us turn to Sylvia Plath’s poem, Medusa. Here are some relevant lines: Off that landspit of stony mouth-plugs, Eyes rolled by white sticks, Ears cupping the sea’s incoherences, incoherences, You house your unnerving head – God-ball,


Lens of mercies, Your stooges Plying their wild cells in my keel’s shadow, Pushing by like hearts, Red stigmata at the very center, Riding the rip tide to the nearest point of departure, Dragging their Jesus hair. Did I escape, I wonder? (Retrieved from http://www.americanpoems.com/poets/sylviaplath/1412)

In this poem, the addressee is Sylvia Plath’s mother. The question arises why the poet thinks metaphorically of her mother as a medusa—in both senses of this term (medusa as gorgon and as jellyfish). What we know about Sylvia Plath is that her relationship to her mother was strained and ambivalent. The strained and ambivalent nature of the relationship is one of the major topics, or subject matters, of the poem. In Greek mythology, Medusa is a gorgon with snakes for hair, who turns people who look at her to stone. We can thus suggest that the negative aspects of Plath’s relationship to her mother are analogically reflected in the Medusa metaphor (“your unnerving head”). That is to say, the particular metaphorical image for the mother is provided by the broader cultural context, that is, Greek mythology. Note, however, that the selection of this image is secondary to the poet’s knowledge about the addressee and the topic of the discourse; if her mother had been different, Plath would not have picked the image of the Medusa but something else—an image that would have fit a different mother with different properties. In this sense, I propose that it is the addressee and the topic of the discourse (the poem) that primarily governs the choice of the image applied to the mother—though conveyed in the form of a culturally defined analogy.

Cultural Context

As we saw in the previous section, the choice of the image of Medusa was in part motivated by the larger cultural context, of which the three gorgons of Greek mythology, including Medusa, form a part. The symbolic belief system is thus one aspect of Sylvia Plath’s cultural system. The poem continues with the following lines: My mind winds to you Old barnacled umbilicus, Atlantic cable, Keeping itself, it seems, in a state of miraculous repair. (Retrieved from http://www.americanpoems.com/poets/sylviaplath/1412)

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Another aspect of the cultural context involves the entities we find in a particular physical-cultural environment. In the lines, the relationship to her mother is conceptualized metaphorically both as the umbilicus and the Atlantic telephone cable. In the former case, the generic-level conceptual metaphor PERSONAL RELATIONSHIPS ARE PHYSICAL CONNECTIONS is fleshed out at the specific level as the umbilicus. This is of course motivated by human biology, not by cultural context. What gives a metaphorical character to it is that we know that the poet is no longer physically-biologically linked to the mother through the umbilicus. The metaphor is probably used to convey the naturalness and inevitability of a strong bond between mother and child. However, the adjacent metaphor Atlantic cable derives from the surrounding physical-cultural environment. The first transatlantic telephone cable system between Great Britain and North America was laid in the 1950s, making it possible for people to communicate directly with each other at a long distance. Through the metaphor, the strength of the biological bond is reinforced, and the Atlantic cable can be seen as the temporal (and metaphorical) continuation of the umbilicus. The cultural context, among other things, includes, as we just saw, the belief system of a person and the physical-cultural environment. Both of these occur in various specific forms in a large number of other poems. The cultural belief system also involves the religious beliefs that are entertained in a given culture. Let us take the first stanza of a poem, Prayers of Steel , by Carl Sandburg. LAY me on an anvil, O God. Beat me and hammer me into a crowbar. Let me pry loose old walls. Let me lift and loosen old foundations. (Retrieved from http://www.bartleby.com/134/39.html)

Here the poet evokes God and wants God to turn him into an instrument of social change. This making of an “old type of man” into a “new type of man” is conceptualized on the analogy of God’s creation of man in the Bible. In other words, the source domain of the metaphor is the biblical act of man’s creation, while the target domain is the making of a new type of man who can effect social changes in the world. This means that the source domain is provided by the religious belief system in the culture of the poet by virtue of an analogy between God’s creation of man and the creation of a tool that metonymically stands for the poet (INSTRUMENT USED FOR THE PERSON USING IT), who can thus function in a new role to effect social change. A physical-cultural element, or entity, that is significant in Sandburg’s poetry is the skyscraper. Consider the first stanza of the poem called Skyscraper : BY day the skyscraper looms in the smoke and sun and has a soul.


Prairie and valley, streets of the city, pour people into it and they mingle among its twenty floors and are poured out again back to the streets, prairies and valleys. It is the men and women, boys and girls so poured in and out all day that give the building a soul of dreams and thoughts and memories. (Dumped in the sea or fixed in a desert, who would care for the building or speak its name or ask a policeman the way to it?) (Retrieved from http://www.bartleby.com/165/55.html)

What makes the skyscraper such a significant symbol and what makes Sandburg choose it to talk about America? The poem was written in 1916 in Chicago. It was at the turn of the 20th century in the major American cities that skyscrapers began to be built on a large scale. The skyscraper became a dominant feature of the city skyline. Due to its perceptual and cultural salience, it became, for Sandburg and many others, a symbol of America. The symbol is based on a connection between a salient element (a kind of building) that characterizes a place and the place itself; hence the metonymy SKYSCRAPER FOR AMERICA, which is a specific-level version of the generic-level metonymy A CHARACTERISTIC PROPERTY FOR THE PLACE THAT IT CHARACTERIZES. In this case, the characteristic property is embodied in a type of building. What is additionally interesting about this example is that it is a metonymy, not a metaphor. It seems that metonymies are also set up in part as a result of the local cultural influence; the skyscraper was at Sandburg’s time a salient feature of the American landscape that made it a natural choice for a metonymic symbol for the country.

Social Context

We have seen above in the analysis of the first stanza of the Sandburg poem that the poet conceptualizes the creation of a new type of man in the form of an implement on the analogy of the creation of man. We can see the same conceptual process at work in the second stanza: Lay me on an anvil, O God. Beat me and hammer me into a steel spike. Drive me into the girders that hold a skyscraper together. Take red-hot rivets and fasten me into the central girders. Let me be the great nail holding a skyscraper through blue nights into white stars. (Retrieved from http://www.bartleby.com/134/39.html)

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An important difference between the first and the second stanza is that the implement that is created in the first can be used to take apart a structure, whereas the object that is created in the second stanza can be used to put a structure together (steel spike, red-hot rivets, great nail). In other words, first an implement is made that is used to destroy a structure, and then the essential ingredients of a structure are made to construct a new structure. This process of work serves as the source domain for a target domain in which the old social structure is removed by means of a work implement and a new social structure is put in its place by means of a new type of man who can accomplish all this. The new type of man is the poet who does both jobs. In short, this is based on the conceptual metaphor THE CONSTRUCTION OF NEW SOCIAL STRUCTURE IS THE PHYSICAL MAKING OF NEW TOOLS AND BUILDING INGREDIENTS. In other words, it is the characteristically social situation of tool making and using that tool to make something else in the American context that inspires the analogy used by the poet. But of course there is more complexity to this conceptualization than a set of systematic mappings that make up the metaphor. The complexities derive in part from the fact that the tools and the ingredients metonymically stand for the poet and that the making of the tools and ingredients metonymically stand for the making of the entire building. The Interaction of Context-Induced and Conventional Conceptual Metaphors

It was noted in the section on cultural context that the skyscraper became one of America’s symbols in the early 20th century. This was the result of the metonymy SKYSCRAPER FOR AMERICA. It was also noted in the section on social context that the metaphor THE CONSTRUCTION OF NEW SOCIAL STRUCTURE IS THE PHYSICAL MAKING OF NEW TOOLS AND BUILDING INGREDIENTS plays a role in the general meaning of the poem by Sandburg. These context-induced conceptual patterns, however, interact with a conventional conceptual metaphor in the poem; it is SOCIETIES ARE BUILDINGS. This conventional conceptual metaphor is a specific-level version of the more general COMPLEX SYSTEMS ARE COMPLEX PHYSICAL OBJECTS metaphor (Kövecses, 2002/2010b). The SOCIETIES ARE BUILDINGS metaphor consists of a number of fixed, conventional mappings, including: the builders the process of building

→

the foundations of the building

→

the building materials

→

the physical structure of the building

→

the building

→

→

the persons creating society the process of creating society the basic principles on which society is based the ideas used to create society the social organization of the ideas the society


Since America is a society, it is conceived of as a building, more specifically, as a skyscraper. The conventional conceptual metaphor A SOCIETY IS A BUILDING is evoked by the poem, but the poet goes way beyond it. He creates a complex image (a blend) with several changes in the basic metaphor: The building becomes a skyscraper, the builder becomes a God/blacksmith/poet/ worker, and the building material and tools become the poet. Many of these changes are motivated by contextual factors. The building as skyscraper is motivated by the physical-cultural context, the builder as God by the religious belief system, the builder as blacksmith by the poet’s personal history (as we will see shortly below), and the builder as worker by the social model of work. I’m not suggesting, of course, that such conventional conceptual metaphors are always present in poems. But I think it is a legitimate claim to suggest that when they are, they can be changed and modified largely in response to the effect of contextual factors, such as the ones discussed earlier.

Linguistic Context

Let us now return to the Plath poem. As the lines quoted above also suggest, the poet is trying to escape from the harmful influence of her mother. (This can be seen most clearly in the line “Did I escape, I wonder?”). What is remarkable here is that, to convey this, the poet makes use of the other sense of the word medusa: the “jellyfish” sense (“Your stooges / Plying their wild cells in my keel’s shadow”). She’s trying to get away from an overbearing mother, and the mother is portrayed analogically as jellyfish. Schools of jellyfish move about in the sea, and jellyfish stings can inflict pain and even death in humans. Thus it can be suggested that the “jellyfish” meaning of medusa is used by the poet because the mythological Medusa was introduced early on in the poem (in the title) to begin with. The word form medusa evokes all the knowledge structures associated with it (given as the two senses of the word), and the poet is taking advantage of them, as they analogically fit the nature of the relationship with her mother. Another potential motivating factor for the use of the second sense is that, according to some commentators, Sylvia Plath developed a great deal of interest in marine biology at about the time she wrote Medusa. The personal interests of a poet may also influence the choice of particular metaphorical images (in this case, the image for the addressee).

The Combined Effect of Factors

In many cases of the influence of contextual factors on metaphoric conceptualization in poetry, the kinds of contexts we have identified so far contribute

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jointly to the metaphorical conceptualization and expression of ideas. Let us consider the Sandburg poem again, as analyzed above. Here’s the poem in full: LAY me on an anvil, O God. Beat me and hammer me into a crowbar. Let me pry loose old walls. Let me lift and loosen old foundations. Lay me on an anvil, O God. Beat me and hammer me into a steel spike. Drive me into the girders that hold a skyscraper together. Take red-hot rivets and fasten me into the central girders. Let me be the great nail holding a skyscraper through blue nights into white stars. (Retrieved from http://www.bartleby.com/134/39.html)

We have seen that both the cultural and social contexts motivate the choice of certain aspects of the language and conceptualization of the poem. The religious belief system (from the cultural context) serves to think and talk about the making of a new man who can build a new social structure and the model of work (from the social context) functions to talk and think about the construction of the new social structure. But there is an additional type of context that needs to be discussed as it clearly contributes to the poem’s conceptual universe. This is the knowledge the speaker-poet has about himself or herself, as discussed above in connection with the Dickinson example. The knowledge a poet has about himself or herself includes not only the biological-physical condition that characterizes the poet but also his or her personal history. If we take into account Sandburg’s personal history, we can account for why he talks about “Lay me on an anvil, O God / Beat me and hammer me into a crowbar” (and “into a steel spike” in the second stanza). The likely reason is that his father was a blacksmith, and we can assume that the poet had some early childhood experience with the job of a blacksmith. It is a blacksmith who takes a piece of metal, heats it, puts it on/to? an anvil, and shapes it into some useful object. This personal knowledge about the job may have led the poet to make use of this image. Although both images are simultaneously present and important, the image of the blacksmith overrides, in the poem, the image of God making man. In the Bible, God makes man by forming him from the dust of the ground and breathing life into his nostrils. In the poem, however, the man-object is created by God as a blacksmith. What emerges here is a complex picture in which the creation of the man-object is accomplished by a God-blacksmith and the resulting man-object is used according to the social model of work as source domain to conceptualize the creation of a new social structure. This is a complex case of conceptual integration, or blending, as proposed by Fauconnier and Turner (2002).


And, of course, the images of hammering and anvil are recurrent themes in English poetry, such as the poetry of Blake. This would be part of the larger (global) context, providing even more motivation for the use of the metaphor. What this analysis adds to conceptual integration theory is that it makes the motivation for the particular input frames participating in the blend clear and explicit. (On this issue, see also chapter 4.) My specific suggestion is that the integration network consists of the input spaces (frames) it does (biblical creation, job of a blacksmith, model of work, and creation of new social structure) because of the various contextual influences that may have been at work in the poet’s mind in the course of the metaphorical construction of the poem.

Metaphor and Context in Fiction

I suggest that everything that was said about poetic metaphor in this chapter also applies to fiction. In chapter 5 of Metaphor in Culture (Kövecses, 2005), I point out, based on work by Semino and Swindlehurst (1996), that variation in otherwise perfectly everyday conceptual metaphors, such as the MACHINE metaphor, can occur on a large scale in fiction as well. In Ken Kesey’s novel, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, Bromden, the Indian “chief,” uses the metaphor of MACHINE extensively. The dimensions of variation in Bromden’s use of the MACHINE metaphor include the individual, stylistic, subcultural, diachronic, and regional dimensions. Bromden is an individual with very specific experiences of the world around him, which gives his metaphors individual status. He also uses creative and unique metaphors, which gives his metaphors a literary flavor. His metaphors reveal the mind of a mentally disturbed person, who has a distorted vision of the world, suggesting a subcultural dimension. His heavy reliance on machinery may also be a product of a highly industrialized Western society after the Second World War, with implications for a diachronic and regional dimension. All these have a joint effect on Bromden’s use of creative metaphors. Knowledge about the speaker (author) may also contribute to an author’s unique set of metaphors in fiction. An especially appropriate illustration of this can be found in David Lodge’s novel Deaf Sentence. The narrator (author) can tell a story that is in large part dominated by the metaphors derived from the author’s own self-knowledge. In this case, the narrator’s physical condition can contribute to the creation of novel metaphors, which is similar to what we saw in Dickinson’s example. Importantly, the title of the novel is Deaf Sentence. This is a metaphor that derives from the narrator’s gradual loss of his hearing. The mapping on which the metaphor is based is “the ability to hear → the ability to lead a full life.” The LIFE AS HEARING metaphor is a unique and novel one that is motivated by the narrator’s physical condition.

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Where Metaphors Come From Conclusions

In the chapter, I argued that the immediate local context can have an influence on the creation of poetic metaphors in the sense that they may facilitate or prime the choice of unconventional metaphors in poetry. The immediate contexts I investigated here include the physical environment, knowledge about the author, the audience, and the topic, the cultural and social setting, and the linguistic context. However, it is important to stress that the priming effect of context is not limited to these particular contexts, but applies to all the contextual factors mentioned in Chapter 4. Of these, two especially significant types of factor in literature involve what I called “previous discourse” (that is, other preceding literary works) and intertextuality as defined in Chapter 4. It is a commonplace that the metaphors used by particular authors and those used intertextually often give rise to novel metaphors in later works. Since this is a well known phenomenon, I provided no examples for such cases in the chapter (except for a hint at certain recurring imagery in English poetry, such as Blake’s blacksmith image). Another point that needs to be stressed as regards the use of metaphors in context is that the influence of a variety of different contextual factors can be seen at work not only in poetry but also in fiction. I briefly noted some examples of this in the previous section. I believe that the analyses of metaphorical language in poetry I presented in the chapter have certain implications for a variety of issues both for the study of poetry and that of human cognition in general. First, the analyses indicate that it is possible to go beyond some limited, and limiting, approaches to the interpretation of poetry. Poems and poetic language are sometimes studied from a purely hermeneutical-postmodernist perspective without any regard to the social-cultural-personal background to the creative process. Poems are, on the other hand, also sometimes studied from a purely social-historical perspective without any regard to the textinternal systematicity of the poem. The approach that I am advocating here provides a natural bridge between these two apparently contradictory views, in that context-induced metaphors can be seen as both resulting from the social-cultural-personal background and lending coherent meaning structures to particular poems. This view is supported by, for example, Guthrie, who claims: Finally, I would add that I am only too well aware that readings based upon biographical evidence are apt to become excessively reductive and simplistic. Nevertheless, in the prevailing postmodernist critical climate, I think we actually stand at greater risk of underestimating the degree of intimacy existing between an author’s literary productions and the network of experiences, great and small, that shapes an individual life. (Guthrie, 1998: 5)


Second, a related implication of the analyses for the study of metaphor in poetry is that in many cases such analyses can point to an additional source of metaphorical creativity in poetry. The use of contextually based, or context-induced, metaphors is often novel in poems, simply because the contexts themselves in which poems are created are often unique and/or specific to a particular poet. Just as importantly, although the particular situations (contexts) in which poets conceptualize the world may often be specific to particular poets and hence the metaphors they use may be unique, the cognitive process (i.e., the effect of context on conceptualization) whereby they create them is not. In Chapter 4, I argued that context-induced metaphors are used in everyday speech. In light of what we saw in this chapter, what seems to be unique to metaphorical conceptualization in poetry is the density and complexity of the process of contextual influence on poets. The poem Prayers of Steel by Carl Sandburg is a good illustration of how a variety of contextual factors can jointly shape a poet’s metaphors within the space of a few lines. In other words, I do not claim in this chapter that everyday discourse and poetry are not different. What I claim is that their difference does not come from conceptual metaphors (of whatever kind). Our felt sense of the difference (in addition to many other things, such as formal properties of poetry) derives in part from the density and complexity of context-induced and bodily based metaphors we find in poetry. Third, the view proposed here may have certain implications for the study of embodied cognition. If it is the case that the physical-biological properties of a poet, for instance, can influence his or her metaphorical conceptualization in the course of creating poems, as we saw in Dickinson’s case, then embodied cognition can be based on personal experiences as well—not only universal correlations in experience, as assumed by the dominant version of conceptual metaphor theory. If what I found is correct, embodied cognition may be based on a variety of different experiences in metaphorical conceptualization, including not only universal bodily experiences, but also social, cultural, and so on, experiences, and, most importantly in this connection, unique personal bodily experiences.

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The Conceptual Context of Linguistic Humor

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Given the proposal at the end of Chapter 5 that the shared meaning making system can be thought of as a global cultural context, I would like to elaborate further on this idea. In the present chapter I propose that linguistic humor is commonly based on how particular meanings function in a larger conceptual context (in the sense of culture 1, discussed in Chapter 5). This is a type of context I have not discussed so far in the book (though the possibility of regarding the conventional metaphorical conceptual system as context was hinted at in Chapter 1). More specifically, I propose in this chapter that the concepts that are available in the conceptual system may be an important source for the creation of metaphors in humorous expressions and jokes. The specific question I ask here is this: Why do we find certain linguistic expressions humorous? This is an apparently straightforward question that we think, until we try, is equally easy and straightforward to answer. But it is not simple and straightforward. If it was, we would not have dozens, or perhaps even hundreds, of theories of humor in general and linguistic humor in particular. (See, e.g., Raskin, 1985; Attardo, 1994; Ritchie, 2004; Shibles, n.d., http://www. drbarbaramaier.at/shiblesw/humorbook/; Krikman, n.d.; just to mention a few). This chapter is an attempt to answer the question in the previous paragraph from a conceptual-metaphor-theory perspective. Obviously, my answer is heavily influenced by the fact that I am a cognitive linguist; I will emphasize the relevance of cognitive operations in understanding humor. (For work along similar lines, see also Barcelona, 2003; Coulson, 2003, 2005; Feeyaerts and Brone, 2005, among others). At the same time, however, I will suggest that such cognitive operations as metaphor, metonymy, and blending cannot in themselves explain the nature of humor. I will propose, together with other researchers, that the notion of incongruity is an essential part of what we find humorous (see, e.g., Koestler, 1964; Raskin, 1985) and I will also offer a list of specific types of incongruities.


In doing so, I will suggest that figurative devices, such as metaphor and several additional ones, play a very special role in achieving humorous effects; namely, they help us create the incongruities themselves that are responsible for humor. As for the methodology, I checked the Cambridge Advanced Learner’s Dictionary for expressions that are marked humorous. The search yielded more than 200 phrases. Of these, I analyzed the first one hundred or so. In this chapter I will use only these expressions, together with their definitions and, in most cases, with the examples as I found them in this dictionary. One important caveat I need to make before I begin the discussion is that I concern myself only with what I take to be cognitive issues in the production and comprehension of humorous expressions. I am aware that humor can only be fully explained if we take into account the various subtle communicative functions (such as irony, sarcasm, witticism, hyperbole, punning, and other playful effects of language) of the expressions analyzed. However, my intention is not a fully exhaustive description of why people find a linguistic expression humorous, but simply to point out some of the common cognitive elements that people rely on when this happens. Finally, in the second half of the chapter I will try to extend the view of linguistic humor as based on humorous linguistic expressions to the analysis of jokes. The applicability of the ideas for linguistic humor to the more complex genre of jokes may provide some indication of the generality and usefulness of the more specific and limited initial theory to the study of humor in general.

Cognitive Processes in Humor

One of the striking features that one notices about humorous expressions from a cognitive linguistic perspective is the very noticeable presence of a number of “figurative” cognitive devices in the expressions. These include metonymy (Lakoff and Johnson, 1980; Kövecses and Radden, 1998), metaphor (Lakoff and Johnson, 1980; Kövecses, 2002/2010a), and blending (Fauconnier and Turner, 2002). Let us see some examples for each. First, take the expression gird yourself (gird (up) your loins). According to the Cambridge Advanced Learner’s Dictionary, its meaning is “to get ready to do something or to deal with something,” especially something difficult. The expression is exemplified with two sentences: We girded ourselves for the fray and Europe’s finest golfers are girding their loins for the challenge of the Ryder Cup. The expression is metonymic in the sense that a preparatory action (girding the loins) is used to indicate the state of readiness to deal with a difficult action, or put in the conventional form: GIRDING YOURSELF FOR THE STATE OF

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. More generally, the metonymy ACTION FOR STATE OF READINESS, or even more generally, CAUSE

READINESS TO DEAL WITH SOMETHING DIFFICULT

is PREPARATORY FOR EFFECT. Another metonymic example that comes from British English is: put the flags out. This is said “when you are pleased and surprised that something has happened.” The example provided by the dictionary is Josh has cleaned the bathroom—put the flags out! Here we have the somewhat more complicated situation, in which we have a chain of metonymies: PUTTING THE FLAGS OUT FOR THE OBSERVANCE OF A NATIONAL HOLIDAY and NATIONAL HOLIDAYS FOR ANY EXCEPTIONAL EVENT. Since in the example Josh’s cleaning the bathroom is an exceptional event and since national holidays stand for exceptional events that are observed by putting the flags out, it is possible to indicate the exceptional event of Josh’s cleaning the bathroom by the phrase putting the flags out. Second, other expressions rely on metaphors. One of them is (as) clear as mud , meaning “very difficult to understand,” as in the example His instructions were as clear as mud. The conceptual metaphor that underlies this is UNDERSTANDING IS SEEING, where the correspondences, or mappings, “ability to see through something → to understand something” and “inability to see through something → to not understand” account for the particular meaning the expression has. Third, an expression that has the same kind of syntactic structure as the previous one but that is based on the somewhat different mental operation of conceptual integration, or blending, is the following: as blind as a bat. This means “to be unable to see well,” demonstrated by the example I’m as blind as a bat without my glasses. Whereas the previous expression can only be understood metaphorically, this one does not require the assumption that a conceptual metaphor is present. We have an input space, input 1, where there is a person who can see well with his glasses and we have another input space, input 2, where we have bats that do not see at all. Now in a third mental space, called the blended space, or simply blend, there is a person who cannot see. The property of bats is projected into the blend, where it applies to a person without his glasses. The person without his glasses comes from input space1 and the inability to see comes from input space 2. In the blend, the person and the bat’s property are fused. (On blending in humor, see Coulson, 2003; http://cogsci. ucsd.edu/coulson/funstuff/funny.html.) There is heated debate in cognitive linguistics and its rival camps concerning the issue of whether these expressions are understood metonymically, metaphorically, or as blends online or it is only their creation that has happened as a result of these processes. In this chapter, I am not concerned with this issue. Instead, the question I would like to explore is whether the processes are inevitable for the understanding of humor (either in the sense of the online understanding of humorous expressions or in the sense of historically creating them). I turn to this issue next.


The Cognitive Basis of Humor

There are two kinds of evidence that indicate that figurative devices are neither sufficient nor necessary for humorous effects. One is that there are humorous expressions that do not contain any of the figurative devices mentioned previously, and, second, there are expressions that do involve such figurative devices but are not humorous in their effects. First, I will examine a case where an obviously humorous expression does not employ a figurative device. We find expressions in the data that do not seem to be based on any of the figurative mental operations mentioned above; instead, their understanding requires familiarity with some (literal) conventional knowledge. Let us take the following expression as an example: There’s a God! The expression “is said in a bad situation when something good happens unexpectedly.” The interpretation of the expression requires a certain amount of conventional knowledge: There are people who have doubts about the existence of God. However, there are other people who believe in the existence of God and who think that when something good happens to people in trouble, it is God who helps them. Second, not all expressions that are based on figurative devices have a humorous effect. We can see that this is the case if we look at some additional examples of the UNDERSTANDING IS SEEING metaphor discussed above. Examples such as I see your point, That’s a transparent argument, and It’s not clear to me employ metaphors but that does not make them humorous. No one would take see, transparent , and clear in the sentences as in any way humorous, though they are all based on a conceptual metaphor. If there are expressions that are humorous but do not rely on figurative devices and if there are expressions that employ figurative devices but are not humorous, then there must be more to humor in language than figurative processes. Following other researchers (especially Raskin, 1985), I suggest that the “more,” the additional element that is needed is the notion of incongruity, or incompatibility, or contrast, inside or between conceptual frames of knowledge—either figurative or literal. In the present section, I would like to take stock of some of the commonly occurring types of incongruity, or incompatibility, in the data, together with the cognitive mechanisms on which the various kinds of incongruities are based. Below is a list of the kinds of incongruity I found, as based on the study of the humorous linguistic expressions in the dictionary: Real vs. imagined/Possible vs. impossible Socially neutral/expected/acceptable vs. socially unacceptable/stigmatized/ taboo Elevated vs. mundane

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Large amount vs. small amount Natural vs. constructed Positive vs. negative evaluation Action vs. event Logical incongruity Linguistic/discourse incongruity Not all of these are equally common. It is especially the first three that predominate in the data under consideration. I will now examine each of these categories of incongruity through some examples.

REAL VS. IMAGINED/POSSIBLE VS. IMPOSSIBLE

These are cases of incongruity where what we take to be real conflicts with some imaginary situation. A special case of this is where something possible, an aspect of real, is in conflict with something impossible, which is often something imagined. Take, for example, the following humorous idiom: That’ll put hairs on your chest! This is “said to somebody who is going to drink something that is strongly alcoholic or eat something satisfying that will make their stomach feel full.” This is based on the metonymy EFFECT FOR CAUSE, or more specifically, RESPONSE FOR STATE. Instead of saying that the drink is very strong, the speaker can choose to indicate this through a response that is associated with this state. But the real issue is where the humorous effect comes from. It is clear that not all RESPONSE FOR STATE metonymies are humorous. I suggest that the humor in the example comes from the incongruity between the real responses we associate with drinking strong alcohol (coughing, getting dizzy, etc.) and the imagined and impossible ones, such as putting hairs on someone’s chest. So the metonymy we employ in understanding this idiom could be rephrased as IMAGINED RESPONSE FOR STATE. It is the incongruity between the real or possible, on the one hand, and the imagined or impossible, on the other, that seems to best account for the humorous effect of this particular expression. We can see that something similar occurs in a metaphorical example. Consider the expression be dripping with something . The expression means “to be wearing a lot of something,” as in She was absolutely dripping with gold/jewels. The underlying conceptual metaphor in this case is LARGE QUANTITIES OF OBJECTS ARE LARGE MASSES OF FLUID. The humor of the expression stems from the incongruity between the image of the person wearing a lot of jewelry and imagining a person dripping with jewelry, as if with water. The former is a realistic image, whereas the second is impossible and is based on our imagination. Several forms of exaggeration may be based on such incongruous images. But we do not need metaphor and metonymy to create incongruities that may be responsible for humorous effects. The British English expression before


the flood is a case in point. Its meaning is “a very long time ago.” The conven-

tional knowledge we have in connection with this expression maintains that the biblical flood happened many thousands of years ago. The incongruity lies in the (assumed, supposed) reality of the occurrence of the flood and the impossibility of the personal event happening such a long time ago. SOCIALLY EXPECTED/ACCEPTABLE/NEUTRAL VS. SOCIALLY UNACCEPTABLE/STIGMATIZED/TABOO

This category of incongruities has also produced a number of examples in the data. The incongruity is between what is socially accepted, expected, respected, or at least neutral, on the one hand, and what is not acceptable, stigmatized, or taboo, on the other. The examples that fall into this category often involve sex, since this form of behavior constitutes a prime case of socially unacceptable and/or tabooed behavior. Let us first look at an idiom that involves a body part that is somewhat socially stigmatized: be the armpit of something . The American expression is defined by the dictionary as follows: “to be an extremely unpleasant, often dirty, place,” as in the phrase the armpit of the North. A very general metaphor that accounts for such expressions is THE WORLD IS THE BODY, which is basically equivalent to the assumption that we conceptualize the world surrounding us through our body. This is based on the notion of “embodiment” in cognitive linguistics and psychology. A specific case of the metaphor is SOCIAL/ SPATIAL/etc. RELATIONS ARE BODY ORGANS. This is a very productive conceptual metaphor, as shown by such originally metaphor-based expressions as in back of , ahead of , and at the foot of . We can account for the humorous effect of the phrase if we assume that there is another conceptual metaphor that is part of the metaphor system in which the concept of armpit participates; it is the metaphor UNPLEASANT IS SMELLY, and more generally, BAD IS SMELLY. We have knowledge about parts/ areas of the body. The smell of the armpit came to be socially constructed as unpleasant. Given this social construction and the BAD IS SMELLY metaphor, the armpit came to be constructed as something bad and unpleasant and as a body part that can serve as a source domain for any unpleasant place. In this case, the incongruity lies between a neutral spatial concept and a socially stigmatized body part that serves as its metaphorical source domain. We can perhaps think of the distinction between socially acceptable and unacceptable as being closely related to other distinctions, such as the distinction between the public and the private. This again has to do with sexual matters, in that sexual behavior dominantly occurs in the private realm. One example that may be relevant to this distinction is the following: get to first base. The American expression means “to kiss somebody in a sexual way; to fail to get through the first stage.” This has clearly to do with such well known

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conceptual metaphors as LIFE IS A GAME, LOVE IS A GAME, and SEXUAL RELATIONSHIPS ARE GAMES, as well as a number of metaphors from the Event Structure metaphor (Lakoff, 1993), such as ACTION IS SELF-PROPELLED MOTION, PROGRESS IS MOTION FORWARD , and DIFFICULTIES ARE OBSTACLES. The incongruity that is evoked here is between the private, personal performance of sexual actions, as opposed to the public, social occasion of performing games, such as baseball. ELEVATED VS. MUNDANE

The next large category of incongruities is that between elevated and mundane, or down-to-earth. The idea simply is that we take certain situations to be elevated, out of the ordinary, and others as everyday. This category also involves several related incongruous distinctions. For example, it may serve us well to discuss the significant vs. trivial, the formal vs. informal, and the poetic language vs. conventional, everyday language distinctions as related aspects or cases of the elevated vs. mundane distinction. This type of incongruity can be exemplified by an expression discussed earlier: before the flood . In addition to the incongruity between the (assumed) reality of the occurrence of the flood and the impossibility of the personal event happening such a long time ago, the expression is characterized by the incongruity between a(n assumed) significant public event and a less significant, mundane personal event. The biblical flood acquired a special, elevated status among events due to its being part of the Bible. This contrasts markedly with the personal, hence mundane or much less significant, event with which it is compared. In other words, humorous expressions may have multiple sources of humor, as the present example indicates. Consider now the metaphor-based humorous expression: call of nature. The meaning as defined by the dictionary is “the need to use the toilet.” Clearly, nature does not call anyone, only people can call other people; thus, we have to do with metaphor, more precisely, personification: NATURE IS A PERSON. What makes the expression humorous, I suggest, is that the personification evokes the large romantic attraction that humans feel for nature and contrasts it with the trivial and mundane need to defecate. As a result, an incongruity between something elevated (large romantic attraction) and something mundane, or down-to-earth (need to defecate) emerges. A final example that exploits the related contrast between poetic language and conventional everyday language is: Hark at somebody! which is “said to somebody who has just accused you of something that you think they are guilty of themselves,” in such examples such as Hark at him calling me lazy when he never walks anywhere if he can drive! There is an incongruity in register here. The archaic, formal word hark is used in a completely informal, everyday situation, as in the example. The humor arises from the incongruity between the two registers.


LARGE AMOUNT VS. SMALL AMOUNT

Many of the humorous expressions involve exaggeration. We can account for several such expressions by assuming what can be called the “large amount vs. small amount” incongruity. This kind of incongruity does not necessarily reveal itself in specific numbers or amounts. The distinction can be merely presupposed. The expression can’t boil an egg means “to be unable to cook even the simplest meal.” There are a number of metonymies that account for this meaning: BOILING FOR COOKING; WAY OF DOING SOMETHING FOR DOING IT; COOKING EGGS FOR COOKING IN GENERAL; and, most importantly, INABILITY TO COOK AN EGG FOR INABILITY TO COOK. In our folk theory of cooking, cooking an egg requires very little expertise. By contrast, cooking in general demands a great deal of expertise. This conflict between little and a great deal of expertise creates the incongruity on which the humor of the phrase is based. Furthermore, we also need a piece of natural logic: if you can’t do a simple version of an activity, you can’t do more complex versions of the same activity. NATURAL VS. CONSTRUCTED

Some other humorous expressions make use of the incongruence between what can be taken to be naturally given as opposed to what is rationally constructed. As one example of this, consider in the brain/looks department, which has the meaning “in intelligence/attractiveness,” as in He’s a bit lacking in the brain department. The expression assumes the metaphor A PERSON IS A COMPANY/ INSTITUTION, where the different aspects of the person correspond to different departments; that is, we have the mapping “departments → aspects of the person.” Given the metaphor, a “natural” person contrasts with an “unnatural” company or other institution. The incongruence is between certain natural capacities of human beings and the rationally designed setup of a company or institution. The clear sense of incongruity is achieved by selecting an element in the source domain that does the trick; that is, one that brings to the fore the “largest possible conceptual distance” between the two domains. POSITIVE VS. NEGATIVE EVALUATION

Straightforward cases of incongruity are those where the same thing receives both a positive and a negative evaluation. There was one such expression in the data: economical with the truth, meaning “avoiding stating the true facts of a situation, or lying about it.” The expression is based on the conventional metaphor IDEAS ARE COMMODITIES. The correspondence that brings together an element from the source and an element from the target domain is this: you may economize with your resources, or commodities, and you may economize with your ideas. However, being economical is evaluated differently in the source

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and the target. In the source, it is considered a good thing, but in the target a bad one. (This may have to do with Gricean maxims like being informative. And it may also be analyzed as a case of blending, where the different values in the source and target are projected into the blend.) It is this incongruity that accounts for the humor of the expression. ACTION VS. EVENT

One example in the data reveals an incongruity between an action and an event. The expression is What’s the damage? which is “used to ask how much something has cost you.” In the expression, the person is viewed as a commodity; hence the metaphor A PERSON IS A COMMODITY. The specific mapping that accounts for the meaning is “damage to the commodity → expense to the person.” We find an incongruity here between the person and the commodity, as well as one between an action performed (paying) and a passive process/ event (damage) that happens to the commodity. LOGICAL INCONGRUITY

In the data, a number of examples reveal what can be seen as “logical incongruities.” These involve a variety of distinct cases, such as the incompatibility between truth and falsehood, redundancy, logical impossibility, and possibly some others that did not occur in the data. Let us begin with redundancy, or tautology, as in the following example: a man’s gotta do what a man’s gotta do. The expression means “you will do whatever you have to do, even if it’s difficult or dangerous.” This is a statement of the obvious. There is no incongruence here in any of the senses discussed previously, but there is a logical incompatibility, where the statement involves a redundancy, or tautology. The logical incompatibility applies, however, only to the surface form of the expression. If it were a pure case of redundancy, it could not mean what it does, namely, that you have to do something even it is difficult or dangerous. The italicized part of the expression’s meaning arises as a result of a metonymic process (PROPERTY OF A CATEGORY FOR THE WHOLE CATEGORY), but this is not my concern here. A more complex example that involves the incompatibility of truth and falsehood is the following: Excuse/pardon my French. This is “said when you are pretending to be sorry for saying a swear word,” as in That sod Wilkins, excuse my French, has taken my bloody parking space. By social convention, you should apologize for swearing. In the example, the speaker pretends to do so. We know this because he swears again immediately after apologizing. We know that French is not the language of swearing, but the speaker sets up a mapping between swear words and French. He equates the language of swearing with French. The logical incompatibility arises between the truth that French is not


the language of swearing, on the one hand, and the obvious falsehood that is generated by its temporary, online construction as being one, on the other. In other words, we have a contradiction between truth and falsehood. This is one form of logical incongruity. LINGUISTIC/DISCOURSE INCONGRUITY

Finally, a type of incongruity involves the use of language as based on conceptual frames. The language used and the conceptual frame corresponding to it may be divorced from each other. This happens in several distinct forms, of which I will mention two here. Take the expression bottoms up! Its meaning is described in the dictionary as follows: “sometimes said in a friendly way just before drinking an alcoholic drink together.” The understanding of the emergence of the phrase from a historical point of view involves some knowledge about containers: Containers have a bottom; containers are used for drinking; we keep liquids in containers; and the idea that by moving the bottom of the container up, the fluid comes out of the container. The crucial part of the creation of the phrase is a metonymy: STATE FOR EVENT, according to which the state of having the bottoms up stands for the event of drinking (the drink coming out of the container). In a way, the request bottoms up! employs words that describe a small part of the entire scenario and seem to be at first entirely independent from it. There is no mention of cups, beer, drinking, and the like. What is given (bottom and up) in the phrase makes sense via the metonymy. The apparent conceptual independence of the words used from the rest of the conceptual frame, or scenario, is a kind of linguistic/discourse incongruity. A distinct kind of linguistic incongruity can be found in the example Great minds think alike, which is “said to somebody just after you have discovered that they have had the same idea as you.” Here the expression involves the metonymy MIND FOR THE PERSON and the metaphor GOOD/IMPORTANT IS BIG (to account for great). The linguistic incompatibility results from the distinction between the person who says this (who is obviously not a great mind but an ordinary person) and the people who are great minds in most people’s opinion. That is to say, the linguistic incongruity is generated by the illegitimate application of the phrase itself to the person who is not a legitimate referent of the phrase. The user pretends that the phrase is legitimately applied to him, but at the same time we know and he knows that it isn’t.

The Role of Figurative Cognitive Operations in Humor

In the section “Cognitive processes in humor,” we saw that humorous expressions often employ figurative cognitive operations, such as metonymy, metaphor, and conceptual integration, or blending. However, in the section “The

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cognitive basis of humor” I argued that the humor in humorous expressions does not come from the presence of these figurative cognitive operations; instead, I suggested that it comes from the many kinds of incongruity that are involved in the humorous expressions in the data. This situation leaves us with an important question: What, then, is the role of these cognitive operations in humor? If it is the case that humorous expressions are commonly based on metonymy, metaphor, and blending, but these cognitive operations are not, in themselves, responsible for the humorous effect of the expressions, then the question is: Why do we have so many metonymy-, metaphor-, and blend-based humorous expressions? The present section is devoted to the discussion of this issue. My strategy will be to examine a number of additional humorous expressions from the data, see which figurative devices are utilized in them, and establish what role the devices play in creating a humorous effect. METONYMY

We can begin with a case involving metonymy. Take the expression the birds and the bees, which has the meaning “the basic facts about sex and reproduction,” as in She’s only six, but she already knows about the birds and the bees. It seems that in this case we have the general category of BASIC FACTS that has a variety of members, including BASIC FACTS ABOUT SEX and BASIC FACTS ABOUT ANIMAL BIOLOGY. Now the expression the birds and the bees makes use of basic facts about animal biology to access, or indicate, basic facts about sex and reproduction. This is metonymic thinking. In it, A MEMBER OF THE CATEGORY OF BASIC FACTS (BASIC FACTS ABOUT ANIMAL BIOLOGY) STANDS FOR ANOTHER MEMBER (BASIC FACTS ABOUT SEX) OF THE WHOLE CATEGORY (BASIC FACTS IN GENERAL). Actually, since the expression mentions only birds and bees, another metonymy is needed to ac-

count for its meaning: KNOWLEDGE ABOUT BIRDS AND BEES FOR BASIC KNOWLEDGE ABOUT ANIMAL BIOLOGY. The incongruity that produces the humorous effect resides in the conflict between a public and socially neutral topic (basic facts about birds and bees) and a highly private and taboo topic (human sex). I suggest that metonymy is used in order to create the very possibility of such an incongruity. This conclusion parallels and reinforces Barcelona’s (2003) finding that in one-line jokes certain generic-level conventional metonymies enable the setting up of conceptual incongruities. Moreover, an appropriate concept or set of concepts has to be selected from the large number of concepts that a metonymy allows for. Birds and bees are appropriate because they represent sufficiently neutral, public knowledge connected with the tabooed topic of human sex through a metonymic relationship. While the metonymy above is a conventional one at the generic level, namely, A MEMBER OF A CATEGORY FOR ANOTHER MEMBER OF THE SAME CATEGORY,


at the specific level it is a fairly unconventional one. This is also a common feature of metaphors used in humorous expressions: They tend to be conventional at the generic level but unconventional at the specific level. (And in some other cases, even the generic-level metaphor can be unconventional.) METAPHOR

That metaphors commonly contribute to the creation of incongruities has been noted by a number of researchers (see, e.g., Barcelona, 2003; Feeyaerts and Brone, 2004; Krikmann, http://haldjas.folklore.ee/~kriku/HUUMOR/ Krikmann_HUMFIG.pdf). Take, as an example from the data, the expression won’t break the bank , meaning “to not cost too much,” as in It only costs two pounds. That’s not going to break the bank. What this metaphorical expression assumes is the metaphor PEOPLE ARE INSTITUTIONS. This is a generic-level metaphor, but it is probably not a conventional one. Not even the less generic version of it, PEOPLE ARE BANKS, could be easily regarded as conventional. The correspondence that is relevant to the meaning of the expression would be something like: “institutional financial transactions → personal financial transactions.” The incongruity here is based on some of our knowledge about the functioning of banks: Some large-scale financial transactions can ruin a bank, while small-scale transactions can’t. This is similar to and contrasts with one’s personal financial transactions. It is similar because both banks and persons carry out financial transactions, and it is different because the transactions of banks typically involve much larger amounts of money than those involved in personal transactions. In other words, there is a sharp contrast between the relatively small amounts of money and the often huge amounts of money involved. This incongruity may be a source of the humor of the expression. The unconventional metaphor sets up a situation in which small and large amounts of money are involved and, based on our knowledge of how banks operate, it becomes possible to say that such a small amount won’t damage the bank, and hence, it won’t damage the person’s financial situation either. The expression have a bun in the oven means “to be pregnant.” The expression does not reflect a conventional conceptual metaphor today (though it may once have reflected one). The metaphor relies on an image-schematic similarity between a pregnant woman and a bun in the oven. The incongruity between the two consists of several aspects. First, there is an incompatibility between the socially constructed wonder and significance of being pregnant and the mundane and (relatively) insignificant action of baking buns. Second, there is an incongruity between the tabooed nature of having sex (and, as a result, having a child) and the nontabooed action of baking a bun. With the help of the cognitive device of metaphor, a suitable source domain is found that serves as a counterpoint to the elevated character of the target domain and that avoids the tabooed nature of the activity that leads to having a child.

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In the next case, we do have a full-fledged conventional conceptual metaphor: HUMANS ARE ANIMALS. An expression from the data is be like feeding time at the zoo, meaning “to be very noisy, untidy and lacking order,” as in Tea-time in our house is like feeding time at the zoo. The metaphor HUMANS ARE ANIMALS can be used to achieve an incongruity between socially acceptable and instinctual behavior. The specific socially unacceptable behavior (being noisy, untidy, etc.) in the expression has to be matched by a similar specific kind of instinctual behavior; it is feeding time in the zoo. Thus, an appropriate correspondence is set up within the conceptual metaphor: “animal behavior at feeding time → noisy, untidy, disorderly human behavior on social occasions.” In other words, the conventional conceptual metaphor may be a first step in finding the appropriate source domain within which the incongruity can be achieved, but a further step is needed—to find, through following the mappings, the expression that is the best, the most complete and fitting match for the original idea in the target domain. It could be suggested in connection with the expression be like feeding time at the zoo that it is based on an analogy created within the framework of a larger, generic-level conceptual metaphor: HUMANS ARE ANIMALS. An expression that is based on an extremely skeletal analogy without any cognitive backing from a conceptual metaphor is: Do bears shit in the woods? According to the dictionary, this is “used to say that the answer to the question you have just been asked is obviously ‘yes.’” The analogous relation is skeletal because the analogy lies in the format: “speech act: question—answer: yes,” which has nothing to do with the content of the question and applies to all questions to which the answer is an obvious “yes.” As an example, consider the conversation: A: “Do you want a nice cold beer? ” B: “ Do bears shit in the woods? ” The incongruity that accounts for the humor is that between a socially acceptable or neutral question and a socially unacceptable or vulgar question. The skeletal analogy allows speakers to produce the incongruity. As an opposite case, let us take the expression: Be full of the joys of spring , whose meaning is “to be very happy,” as in He bounced into the office, full of the joys of spring. This is the opposite of the previous example in two ways: First, instead of vulgar language, it uses poetic language and, second, instead of a skeletal analogy, it is based a rich set of conventional conceptual metaphors. The humorous effect of the expression derives from the incongruity between the conventional, everyday way of talking about being happy, using the word happy, and the poetic, unconventional way of talking about it. What enables speakers to move between the two horns of the incongruity? I would propose that it is a set of conventional conceptual metaphors that are combined: A LIFETME IS A YEAR; EMOTIONS ARE SUBSTANCES; PEOPLE ARE CONTAINERS; INTENSITY

. As Lakoff and Turner (1989) point out, one of the ways in which poetic language is produced is by means of such combinations of conceptual metaphors. That is to say, the incongruity between the everyday and the poetic is brought about by combining the metaphors. IS QUANTITY


Metaphor and metonymy often combine to yield humorous figurative expressions. One example of this is the phrase hold court, which means “to get a lot of attention from people who gather round to listen, especially on a social occasion,” as in Patrick is holding court at the end of the table. The meaning of the phrase assumes THE OBJECT OF ATTENTION IS THE CENTER and the IMPORTANT IS CENTRAL conceptual metaphors, as well as the metonymy SURROUNDING SOMEBODY FOR PAYING ATTENTION TO THAT PERSON. Here the incongruity, or incompatibility, arises between the everyday situation when this happens and the archaic situation in the king’s court. Thus, what is needed, in addition, to set up the incongruity is the metonymy SPECIFIC INSTANCE OF THE CATEGORY FOR THE WHOLE CATEGORY , where the general concept of attention is the whole category, one instance of the general category is an everyday situation, and another instance is the archaic situation in the king’s court.

BLENDING

Blends are especially useful devices in creating and resolving incongruities (see, e.g., Coulson, 2003, 2005). First, I will examine two expressions whose humorous effect is due to the incongruity between what’s real and impossible, and then, I will look at two expressions that involve logical incongruities. In the expression Somebody’s eyes are bigger than their belly/stomach, there is a surface incongruity between the size of the eyes and the size of the stomach. Based on our knowledge, we know that this is impossible; people’s eyes are not bigger than their stomach. According to the dictionary, the expression is used “to say when somebody has taken more food than they can eat.” I believe a more precise formulation of the expression’s meaning would be this: “to desire more than what you can eat.” How can we get from the expression that is characterized by a surface incongruity to the meaning of the expression that is not incongruous? We can postulate two input spaces: input 1 with the eyes and input 2 with the stomach. In input 1, the eyes stand metonymically for looking (EYES FOR LOOKING, more generally, INSTRUMENT FOR ACTION). The action of looking stands, in turn, for desire; hence, LOOKING FOR DESIRE (more generally, BEHAVIORAL REACTIONS FOR THE EMOTIONS). Furthermore, based on our everyday knowledge we know that opening the eyes wider indicates more desire to eat. In input 2, the stomach stands metonymically for eating in virtue of the metonymy OBJECT INVOLVED IN AN ACTION FOR THE ACTION. Furthermore, we have some everyday knowledge about the stomach, namely, that the stomach has a certain capacity and that its capacity can be responsible for how much we eat. In the blend, we have eyes bigger than the stomach, meaning that somebody’s desire to eat something is bigger than what the person can actually eat.

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Thus, the blend creates but, at the same time, also resolves a surface incongruity between what’s real and what’s not. Whereas in the previous example the blended space resolves the incompatibility between surface impossibility and deep reality, the next example creates a blend with an unresolved incongruity. The expression With friends like you, who needs enemies? is “said to or about somebody who claims to be your friend but who is treating you very badly.” In input 1, there is a friend and in input 2 there is an enemy. Our everyday knowledge about friends and enemies includes that friends help each other and do not hurt each other, whereas enemies hurt each other and do not help each other. In the blend, we have a friend who hurts you; that is, an essential property of friends is replaced by an essential property of enemies. Thus, there is an incompatibility inside the blend: a friend who hurts you. In other words, the blend creates an incongruity, which is the source of humor.

Toward a Cognitive Linguistic Account of Humorous Expressions

In light of the foregoing analyses, we can attempt to formulate the sketch of a cognitive linguistic account that can explain at least a part of the humor we find in many linguistic expressions. I propose that such a skeletal account would consist of the following elements: First, it would recognize that there is a particular meaning that needs to be expressed. Second, this meaning has, or can be assigned, one or several values in a system of dichotomous values, such as the ones that have been identified (e.g., elevated—mundane; large—small). Third, given this value, an expression has to be found that bears the meaning that needs to be expressed but that has a value opposite to the value of the original meaning. Fourth, there is a conceptual pathway that leads from the original meaning that has a value (or values) and that is expressed via a more conventional form to an expression with the same meaning but that has the opposite value and that can be expressed by another, less conventional form. Fifth, the conceptual pathways include metonymy, metaphor, conceptual integration, and also conventional knowledge. Obviously, this is very sketchy account of how linguistic humor arises, but, hopefully, it is on the right track, at least in many cases. The types of cases where it may not work very well include linguistic and logical incongruities. It remains to be seen how far this model could be generalized to incongruities of this kind.


Extending the Account to Jokes

To see how the account given earlier can be applied to more complex types of humor, let us take a well-known joke that is available on the Internet in a variety of forms. The joke is about a debate between the pope and the rabbi. As we will see, the analysis of the joke will involve a great deal more cognitive complexity than the case of “simple” humorous linguistic expressions. At the same time, I will suggest that the basic features that make linguistic expressions humorous also apply to jokes. Here is the joke: The Rabbi and the Pope Several centuries ago, the pope decided that all the Jews had to leave the Vatican. Naturally there was a big uproar from the Jewish community. So the pope made a deal. He would have a religious debate with a member of the Jewish community. If the Jew won, the Jews could stay. If the pope won, the Jews would leave. The Jews realized that they had no choice. So they picked an aged man named Moishe to represent them. Rabbi Moishe’s Latin wasn’t very good—in fact, he knew very little—but he was a man of great faith and well respected in the Jewish community. The pope agreed. What could be easier than a silent debate? The day of the great debate came. Moishe and the pope sat opposite each other for a full minute before the pope raised his hand and showed three fingers. Moishe looked back at him and raised one finger. The pope waved his fingers in a circle around his head. Moishe pointed to the ground where he sat. The pope pulled out a wafer and a glass of wine. Moishe pulled out an apple. The pope stood up and said, “I give up. This man is too good. The Jews can stay.” An hour later, the cardinals were all around the pope asking him what happened. The pope said: “First I held up three fingers to represent the Trinity. He responded by holding up one finger to remind me that there was still one God common to both our religions. Then I waved my finger around me to show him that God was all around us. He responded by pointing to the ground and showing that God was also right here with us. I pulled out the wine and the wafer to show that God absolves us from our sins. He pulled out an apple to remind me of original sin. He had an answer for everything. What could I do?” Meanwhile, the Jewish community had crowded around Moishe. “What happened?” they asked. “Well,” said Moishe, “First he said to me that the Jews had three days to get out of here. I told him that not one of us was leaving. Then he told me that this whole city would be cleared of Jews. I let him know that we were staying right here.” “And then?” asked a woman. “I don’t know,” said Moishe. “He took out his lunch and I took out mine.” To understand the joke and to see how the basic ingredients of creating humor are shared by the joke and humorous linguistic expressions, we need to bring in and rely on several additional cognitive devices.

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Where Metaphors Come From FRAMES

As Fillmore (e.g., 1982) and several other scholars point out, the meanings of words are relative to the mental frames in which they function. In the course of their use, words evoke their mental frames. The most important event of the joke is the debate between the pope and the rabbi. The words debate, or argument, activate a particular mental model, or frame, with a number of elements and relationships among the elements. The elements in the present case include the two persons engaged in the argument, the topic of the debate, the purpose, the modality, the place, the time, and so forth. These schematic elements are realized in the joke by specific instantiations. To understand the joke, one needs to understand the mappings between the specific instantiations (e.g., pope, rabbi) and the schematic elements (e.g., two persons debating). Some mental frames, or models, are defined by conceptual metaphors. In the joke, the debate, or argument, appears as a fight or sporting game with a winner and a loser; hence the conceptual metaphor A DEBATE IS A FIGHT (or GAME). The basic mappings that apply are: “the fighters/opponents” → the debaters’ and “winning → convincing.” ALTERNATIVE CONCEPTUALIZATION

Here is a sketch of the debate: The pope raised three fingers. 1b: The rabbi showed one finger. The pope waved his fingers in a circle. 2b: The rabbi pointed to the ground. 3a: The pope pulled out a wafer and a glass of wine. 3b: The rabbi pulled out an apple. 1a: 2a:

Clearly, the same gestures are conceptualized, or construed, differently by the two debaters. This is called “alternative construal” in cognitive linguistics (see, e.g., Langacker, 1987). Before I turn to the issue of how it is possible to interpret the same content (gesture or verbal message) in significantly different ways, let us see the alternative construals offered by the participants of each other’s gestures. Let us first see how the pope’s gestures are interpreted by himself and the rabbi: The pope raised three fingers. Interpretation by the pope: To represent the Holy Trinity. Interpretation by the rabbi : That Jews had three days to get out. The pope waved his finger in a circle. Interpretation by the pope: To show that God was all around. Interpretation by the rabbi : The whole city would be cleared of Jews.


The pope pulled out a wafer and a glass of wine. Interpretation by the pope: To show that God absolves us from our sins. Interpretation by the rabbi: He took out his lunch. Let us now look at how the rabbi’s gestures are interpreted by himself and the pope: The rabbi raised one finger. Interpretation by the rabbi : Not one of us was leaving. Interpretation by the pope: There was still one God common to both our religions. The rabbi pointed to the ground. Interpretation by the rabbi : We are staying right here. Interpretation by the pope: God is right here with us. The rabbi pulled out an apple. Interpretation by the rabbi : I took out my lunch. Interpretation by the pope: To remind me of original sin. As can be seen from these interpretations, the pope stays consistently within the frame of CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY both regarding his and the rabbi’s construals of the gestures: Pope: To represent the Holy Trinity. Pope: To show that God was all around. Pope: To show that God absolves us from our sins. Pope: There was still one God common to both our religions. Pope: God is right here with us. Pope: To remind me of original sin.

Contrary to the pope, the rabbi stays consistently within the frame at hand: the issue of STAYING OR LEAVING: Rabbi : That Jews had three days to get out. Rabbi : The whole city would be cleared of Jews. Rabbi : He took out his lunch. Rabbi : Not one of us was leaving. Rabbi : We are staying right here. Rabbi : I took out my lunch.

In other words, both the pope’s and the rabbi’s construals of the gestures are consistent and homogeneous; the pope speaks and interprets what happens relative to CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY, while the rabbi does so relative to the frame of STAYING OR LEAVING. The only exception to this is the rabbi’s interpretation “He

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took out his lunch,” which is not a part of either the THEOLOGY or the STAYING OR LEAVING frame. I will come back to this issue later. Let us first examine the question of what makes alternative conceptualization so easy. How is it possible that the two debaters can be so easily at cross purposes? Is this happening just for the sake of the joke? As indicated previously, meanings (either gestural or verbal) are embedded in frames and depend on which frames we apply to their comprehension. Two gestures can mean entirely different things in very different conceptual frames. To see this, let us review the pope’s interpretations first, and then those by the rabbi. The pope raised three fingers. Interpretation by the pope: To represent the Holy Trinity. Interpretation by the rabbi : That Jews had three days to get out. Both participants use the same conceptual metonymy here: A PROPERTY OF THE CATEGORY FOR THE WHOLE CATEGORY. At the same time, however, they use it within different frames. The pope employs it within the frame of CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY, resulting in the specific metonymy THREE (FINGERS) FOR THE HOLY TRINITY, whereas the rabbi employs the specific metonymy THREE (FINGERS) FOR THREE DAYS, which forms part of the STAYING OR LEAVING frame. The pope waved his finger in a circle. Interpretation by the pope: To show that God was all around. Interpretation by the rabbi : The whole city would be cleared of Jews. In this case as well, both the pope and the rabbi make use of the same conceptual device, but this time it is a metaphor: WHOLENESS/COMPLETENESS IS ROUNDNESS. The linguistic expressions “all around” and “the whole city” are instances of this conceptual metaphor, and the circle drawn indicates completeness in both cases. However, the completeness that is referred to is different, as suggested by the two expressions that fit different frames. The same conceptual metaphor enables two divergent interpretations, depending on the frames to which applies. The pope pulled out a wafer and a glass of wine. Interpretation by the pope: To show that God absolves us from our sins. Interpretation by the rabbi : He took out his lunch. At this point, we find a major change in the process of interpretation. The pope’s interpretation is based on the generic IDEAS ARE FOOD and the specific GOD’S WORDS ARE FOOD conceptual metaphors, while the rabbi resorts to a metonymy instead: FOOD EATEN FOR THE MEAL (THE APPLE FOR LUNCH). In comparison to the previous two cases, the rabbi’s interpretation is built on a novel frame: that of LUNCH, which is not part of either the frame used by the pope or that by the rabbi. With this, he moves outside the patterns of conceptualizations (CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY frame and STAYING OR LEAVING frame) thus far used.


Let’s look at the rabbi’s gestures now: The rabbi raised one finger. Interpretation by the rabbi : Not one of us was leaving. Interpretation by the pope: There was still one God common to both our religions. Similar to the pope’s first gesture, both the rabbi and the pope interpret the rabbi’s gesture by means of the same cognitive mechanism: the metonymy A PROPERTY OF THE CATEGORY FOR THE WHOLE CATEGORY . The raising of one finger is used metonymically, but in the two different frames it means one Jew in one frame and one God in the other. The rabbi pointed to the ground. Interpretation by the rabbi : We are staying right here. Interpretation by the pope: God is right here with us. In the same way, they both employ the same metonymy here: THE HAND/FINGER POINTING TO THE GROUND FOR THE GROUND. However, since the metonymies function within different frames, they can mean different things to the participants. The rabbi pulled out an apple. Interpretation by the rabbi : I took out my lunch. Interpretation by the pope: To remind me of original sin. Here the rabbi’s interpretation is based on the MEAL/LUNCH frame and makes use of the metonymy FOOD EATEN FOR THE MEAL (THE APPLE FOR LUNCH). On a generic level, the corresponding metonymy is THE OBJECT INVOLVED IN THE ACTION FOR THE ACTION (where the object involved is an apple). The pope uses this latter generic metonymy as well, where the apple functions as the symbol of the original sin, that is, THE APPLE INVOLVED IN THE ORIGINAL SIN FOR THE ORIGINAL SIN. For this reason, though they use the same generic-level metonymy, since the interpretive frameworks ( LUNCH and CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY) are different, the resulting interpretations will be very different. In summary, then, alternative conceptualization can occur for essentially two reasons. One is that the same conceptual device (metaphor or metonymy) is utilized in two different frames. The other is that a novel frame is introduced to the discourse (here the LUNCH frame). Both can affect the interpretation of the “same” content. PROTOTYPE

How can the rabbi call the wafer and the wine lunch? Since the understanding of the joke hinges on the concept of LUNCH, we need to examine this question in some detail. On the analogy of Fillmore’s (1982) prototype definition of BREAKFAST, we can think of the prototype of LUNCH as follows: lunch is eaten between

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breakfast and dinner; it is eaten around the middle of the day; and lunch consists of a menu of typical dishes that may vary cross-culturally. In the joke, there is no information concerning whether the lunch was eaten after breakfast and before dinner and we also do not know what time of day it was eaten. On the basis of these two criteria, the rabbi could not call the consumption of the wafer and the wine lunch. However, we do know (together with the rabbi) that the wafer is a kind of food and the wine is a kind of drink. Based on this information, the wafer and the wine can be legitimately (though not prototypically) called lunch. This explains the rabbi’s interpretation of the pope’s taking the wafer and the wine as a meal, a lunch. CONCEPTUAL INTEGRATION

The pope misunderstands the rabbi because he interprets the rabbi’s gestures in terms of the CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY frame. And the rabbi misunderstands the pope because he interprets the pope’s gestures relative to the frame of STAYING OR LEAVING. How is this possible? We can answer the question if we think of the figures of the pope and the rabbi in the joke as composed by means of conceptual integration. We can conceive of the pope as a blend of the (official) concept of pope and that of a pious Christian believer. In one input space, we have the pope who has a great deal of power and in the other we have a pious but somewhat naïve and feebleminded Christian, who interprets everything through the lens of his beliefs. Consequently, in the blend we find a pope who is pious, naïve, and feebleminded, but who has a great deal of power (to make important decisions). The same applies to the rabbi. In one input space, we have a wise rabbi based on the frame of the RABBI, and in the other, the stereotype (both inside and outside the group of Jews) of a Jew who can argue and debate effectively. Accordingly, the rabbi in the joke embodies this blend of features; hence the wise rabbi who can bargain effectively against the pope. Another issue that needs to be cleared up in connection with the rabbi is that in the joke the rabbi does not know what the wafer and the wine mean in Christian theology. His interpretation (i.e., the pope pulled out his lunch) does not really fit the picture: we do know that he knows the meaning of the wafer and the wine in Christianity. Then, why was it necessary to portray the rabbi in this light in the joke? The portrayal does not follow from anything in the joke. Moreover, it would contradict the features of the rabbi stressed in the joke, namely, that he is wise. We need to discuss one more conceptual device to understand this. HIGHER LEVEL CONSTRUCTIONAL SCHEMAS

The debate between the pope and the rabbi becomes a source of humor when the rabbi interprets the wafer and the wine as the pope’s lunch. There is a clear


incongruity between the content of the conceptual domain of CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY and that of LUNCH. The former belongs to the realm of the sacred and elevated, while the latter to the realm of the profane, secular, and everyday. The humorous effect of the joke is most obvious when we reach this point in telling the joke. For the humorous effect to take place, the rabbi must move outside his own conceptual frame (that of STAYING OR LEAVING) and enter or adopt a new profane and utterly everyday frame. At the same time, he must keep the content of the pope’s frame (i.e., the elements of the CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY frame) intact, while reframing it. The reframing, or reconceptualization, of the wafer and the wine as lunch accomplishes exactly this. What we find, then, is that jokes, and discourses in general, are composed of constructional schemas at various levels of generality. The highest-level schema in this case is that of a joke. As the analysis above shows, the joke brings together two conceptual domains, or frames, that are incongruent: one is sacred and elevated, the other is profane and everyday. Jokes typically involve two incongruent domains, or schemas (frames), where one of the sources of their incongruence is, as in the present case, the tension between the elevated and the mundane. We can take the two incongruent domains to be the constructional schema of the joke. We can assume, furthermore, that the development of the original frames (here that of CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY and STAYING OR LEAVING) in the joke must undergo a conceptual shift as a result of which one of the frames is ad justed to the overarching constructional schema (i.e., the frame of STAYING OR LEAVING is shifted, and the LUNCH frame is introduced). It is at this point that the punch line is offered, that is, the humorous effect is produced. In other words, with this conceptual shift to conform to the general constructional schema, the story becomes a joke.

Conclusions

As this chapter shows, we often try to achieve humorous effects by means of metaphor, metonymy, blending or simply our conventionalized frame-based knowledge of the world. Metaphors can thus emerge as products of human playfulness as well. In the chapter, I have examined roughly one hundred linguistic expressions that are marked humorous by the Cambridge Advanced Learner’s Dictionary. The analyses of particular expressions indicate that many of these are based on metonymy, metaphor, and conceptual integration. However, I pointed out that these figurative devices are neither sufficient nor necessary for the humorous effect of such expressions. Following other researchers, I suggested that to account for humorous expressions we need to rely

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on the notion of conceptual incongruity, or incompatibility, inside or between frames of knowledge. On the basis of the analyses, I argued that there are a number of clearly identifiable types or kinds of incongruity that appear to be responsible for humorous effects. These include “real vs. imagined,” “possible vs. impossible,” “socially neutral/expected/acceptable vs. socially unacceptable/stigmatized/taboo,” “elevated vs. mundane,” and several others. As regards the issue of why we have so many metonymy-, metaphor-, and blending-based humorous expressions, my suggestion was that these figurative devices create or facilitate the creation of incongruities. Given such findings, an embryonic cognitive linguistic account of linguistic humor can be outlined. At the heart of this account is the conceptual pathway that recreates a particular meaning by means of a new form and a new (opposing) value. This idea seems to be extendable to jokes, as was demonstrated by examining the joke about the pope and the rabbi. However, the account of jokes seems to require a great deal more cognitive complexity than that of isolated linguistic expressions. More generally, in the chapter I claim that linguistic humor results from expressing a meaning in a form-meaning pairing (symbolic unit 1) that is associated with a “value” by means of another symbolic unit (symbolic unit 2) that is associated in turn with an opposing value, and where the meaning of symbolic unit 2 includes the meaning of symbolic unit 1. In a sense, then, symbolic unit 2 is the opposite of symbolic unit 1 (despite the shared meaning). In other words, we can take symbolic unit 2 to be a part of the larger conceptual context for symbolic unit 1.

9

Happiness in Context

As was mentioned in Chapter 3, one of the functions of the conceptual system is to provide a complete mental representation of our immediately and nonimmediately accessible experiences of the world. In this sense, the conceptual system (as a product) may be regarded as the mental representation of the totality of our experiences. However, this should not be taken to mean that our entire knowledge representation that is linked to a particular concept needs to be activated in the course of metaphorically conceptualizing that concept in a given communicative situation. To illustrate this point, I will use the concept of HAPPINESS in this chapter. I provide a fairly complete knowledge representation of this concept within the totality of our mental representation of the world, and then turn to two case studies that indicate that in a given communicative situation we utilize just a small portion of the complete representation of the concept or we can entirely reconceptualize (redefine) it. I examine the concept of HAPPINESS in three very different historical and cultural contexts: contemporary everyday English, the Declaration of Independence, and the New Testament. I show that the study of contemporary English yields not just one but two prototypical models (meanings) for the concept (happiness as an immediate response and happiness as a value). The (altogether) four meanings, or models, of happiness display clear and major differences. I point out how different historical and cultural contexts influence and shape the concept of HAPPINESS. This shaping effect results primarily from the conceptual devices that constitute the way we speak and think about emotions: conceptual metaphors, conceptual metonymies, and related concepts. The different cultural contexts favor different conceptual devices that result in different partial cognitive models (or frames) for the concept of HAPPINESS. In previous work on metaphorical conceptualization, I proposed a theory of metaphor that is capable of accounting for both the universality and

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cultural variation of conceptual metaphors and metaphorically constituted concepts (Kövecses, 2005). A large part of this endeavor was based on my prior work on emotion concepts and the metaphors that are related to them (Kövecses, 1990, 2000/2003). In general terms, I argued that universal aspects of (emotion) concepts arise from universal bodily experiences that characterize the people who construct the concepts and that variation in metaphorical conceptualization is a result of the various types of contexts in which people with essentially the same bodily experiences perform conceptualization. I also argued that universal embodiment and contextual influence cannot be rigidly separated, but instead they work jointly in the creation of (emotion) concepts (see also Chapter 5). In this chapter, however, I will focus attention on contextual influence alone; that is, on how different contexts can shape our conceptualization of an emotion—that of happiness. I will examine a set of concepts that can, and are, subsumed in English and other languages under the general category of HAPPINESS in three different historical and cultural periods: in late 18th century American politics, in present-day everyday English, and in Christian thought in biblical times. More specifically, I want to examine the concept of HAPPINESS in terms of its three (actually four, as we’ll see) closely related meanings as the three (four) meanings appear in the three very different contexts. The concept, or category, of HAPPINESS can be referred to by a variety of different terms. These include the term happiness itself, joy, merry, delight, rejoice, glad , elation, and many others. The terms we use for happiness can vary according to the contexts in which the concept is used. I will consider three such contexts: the everyday world as represented in English (be happy, happiness, joy), the United States Declaration of Independence (the pursuit of happiness), and the New Testament in the Bible (be blessed). First, I characterize the concept of emotion in general from a cognitive linguistic perspective, making use of such cognitive devices as conceptual metaphor, conceptual metonymy, conceptual prototypes, and conceptual frames. Second, I examine the concept of HAPPINESS as it can be recovered from everyday English. Third, I analyze the phrase the pursuit of happiness in the first passages of the Declaration of Independence. Fourth, I study the closely related concept of “being blessed/happy” in the Gospel by Matthew in the New Testament. The so-called beatitudes are widely regarded as the most definitive explication of the idea of Christian “happiness” in the Bible.

The Conceptual Structure of Emotion Concepts

In previous research on emotion concepts, I found that emotion concepts are composed of four distinct conceptual ingredients: conceptual metaphors,


conceptual metonymies, related concepts, and cognitive models (see Kövecses, 1986,1988, 1990, 2000/2003). My suggestion in all this work was that conceptual metaphors, conceptual metonymies, and related concepts constitute cognitive models. It is cognitive models, or conceptual frames, that we assume to be the mental representation of particular emotions, such as happiness, anger, love, fear, and many others. Let us now see some representative examples for each of these.

CONCEPTUAL METAPHORS

By conceptual metaphor, I mean a set of correspondences between a more physical source domain and a more abstract target domain (e.g., Lakoff and Johnson, 1980; Kövecses, 2002/2010a). Some of the most typical conceptual metaphors that characterize emotions include the following: ( filled with emotion) EMOTION IS HEAT/FIRE (burn with emotion) EMOTION IS A NATURAL FORCE (be overwhelmed by an emotion) EMOTION IS A PHYSICAL FORCE (be struck by an emotion) EMOTION IS A SOCIAL SUPERIOR (be governed/ruled by an emotion) EMOTION IS AN OPPONENT (be overcome by an emotion) EMOTION IS A CAPTIVE ANIMAL (let go of an emotion) EMOTION IS A FORCE DISLOCATING THE SELF (be beside oneself with an emotion) EMOTION IS BURDEN (be weighed down by an emotion) EMOTION IS A FLUID IN A CONTAINER

The overall claim concerning such conceptual metaphors was that they are instantiations of a general force-dynamic pattern (see Kövecses, 2000/2003), in the sense in which this was first discussed by Leonard Talmy (1988; see also Chapter 3). In that pattern, a forceful entity (a cause or an emotion) affects another forceful entity (the rational self) with a certain outcome. Given the forcedynamic character of these conceptual metaphors and given that they can be said to make up a large part of the conceptual structure associated with emotions, it can be suggested that emotion concepts are largely force-dynamically constituted (Kövecses, 2000/2003).

CONCEPTUAL METONYMIES

Conceptual metonymies can be of two general types: CAUSE OF EMOTION FOR THE EMOTIONS, and EFFECT OF EMOTION FOR THE EMOTIONS, with the latter being much more common than the former. (For a cognitive linguistic viewpoint on metonymy, see Kövecses and Radden, 1998; Panther and Radden, 1999; Barcelona,

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2000). Below are some specific representative cases of the general metonymy EFFECT OF EMOTION FOR THE EMOTIONS: (being a hothead ) DROP IN BODY TEMPERATURE FOR FEAR (getting cold feet) CHEST OUT FOR PRIDE ( puffing one’s chest out with pride) RUNNING AWAY FOR FEAR ( fleeing the scene) WAYS OF LOOKING FOR LOVE (looking at someone amorously ) FACIAL EXPRESSION FOR SADNESS (having a sad face) BODY HEAT FOR ANGER

These specific types of conceptual metonymies correspond to physiological, behavioral, and expressive responses associated with particular emotions. Thus, BODY HEAT FOR ANGER and DROP IN BODY TEMPERATURE FOR FEAR are conceptual representations of physiological responses; CHEST OUT FOR PRIDE and RUNNING AWAY FOR FEAR are those of behavioral responses; and WAYS OF LOOKING FOR LOVE and FACIAL EXPRESSION FOR SADNESS are those of expressive responses.

RELATED CONCEPTS

What I call “related concepts” are emotions or attitudes that the subject of an emotion (i.e., the person feeling an emotion) has in relation to the object or cause of the emotion. For example, friendship is an emotion or emotional attitude (though, according to studies, a nonprototypical one) that the subject of love prototypically has toward the beloved. If someone says that he or she is in love with someone, we can legitimately expect the subject of love to also exhibit the emotional attitude of friendship toward the beloved (at least in the prototypical cases of romantic love). In this sense, friendship is a concept inherent in the concept of romantic love (again, at least in the prototypical cases of romantic love). (Related concepts display different degrees of relatedness— inherent concepts are most closely related to a particular concept.) It can be suggested that such inherent concepts function as conceptual metonymies. After all, by mentioning one such inherent concept I may refer to the whole concept of which it is a part. In the example, friendship may indicate romantic love. This explains why the words girlfriend and boyfriend can be used to talk about people who are in a romantic love relationship. (If there were no such inherent relationship between romantic love and friendship, the use of the terms would be entirely unmotivated to designate people who are in love.) Such uses of related concepts can be taken to be PART FOR WHOLE metonymies.

COGNITIVE MODELS

Following Lakoff (1987), we can think of a category as constituted by a large number of members, with some members being central. The mental


representation of such central members can be given in the form of prototypical cognitive models. Such cognitive models can be metaphoric or metonymic. Emotions are conceptually represented in the mind as cognitive models, or frames. A particular emotion can be represented by means of one or several cognitive models that are prototypical of that emotion. This emerges from the Roschean idea that categories have a large number of members, one or some of which being prototypical and many of which being nonprototypical (see, e.g., Rosch, 1978). Prototypical members of emotion categories are represented by prototypical cognitive models, whereas nonprototypical members are represented as nonprototypical models, that is, as deviations from the prototypical model (or models). (For more on this, see Chapter 5.) Conceptual metaphors, conceptual metonymies, and related concepts all converge on such a prototypical model (or models) for particular emotions. Such convergence can occur in at least three different ways. In one, the conceptual ingredients jointly constitute a cognitive model. In the other, they are based on a previously existing cognitive model. And in the third, some of them constitute parts of a model and some of them are based on a prototypical cognitive model. In the discussion to follow, I will not take sides on this issue (but see Kövecses, 1999, 2005). Prototypical cognitive models can be thought of as folk theories (as opposed to expert theories) of particular emotions (Kövecses, 1990). As I suggested in Chapter 3 and in previous work (Kövecses, 2000), the most schematic folk theory of emotions at a generic level can be given as follows:

cause of emotion → emotion → (controlling emotion) → response The schema represents a very general idea of what emotions are like: There are certain causes that lead to emotions, and the emotions we have make us (i.e., the self) produce certain responses. Commonly, there are certain social constraints on which responses are socially acceptable. Societies may impose different sets of control mechanisms on emotions. After this survey of the general structure of emotion concepts, let us turn to the specific concept of HAPPINESS.

The Concept of Happiness in Everyday English

The concept of HAPPINESS is characterized by the same cognitive devices as we have seen above for the concept of EMOTION; that is, metaphors, metonymies, related concepts, and cognitive models. The description of happiness in this section is largely based on Kövecses (1991a).

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Where Metaphors Come From CONCEPTUAL METAPHORS OF HAPPINESS

The concept of HAPPINESS is characterized by a large number of various types of conceptual metaphors. Specifically, three types of conceptual metaphor can be distinguished as regards happiness: general emotion metaphors, metaphors that provide an evaluation of the concept of HAPPINESS, and metaphors that provide much of the phenomenological nature or character of happiness. The particular conceptual metaphors belonging to the three types are given below, each with a linguistic example. General Emotion Metaphors

She was bursting with joy. HAPPINESS IS HEAT/FIRE Fires of joy were kindled by the birth of her son. HAPPINESS IS A NATURAL FORCE I was overwhelmed by joy. HAPPINESS IS A PHYSICAL FORCE He was hit by happiness. HAPPINESS IS A SOCIAL SUPERIOR They live a life ruled by happiness. HAPPINESS IS AN OPPONENT She was seized by joy. HAPPINESS IS A CAPTIVE ANIMAL All joy broke loose as the kids opened their presents. HAPPINESS IS INSANITY The crowd went crazy with joy. HAPPINESS IS A FORCE DISLOCATING THE SELF He was beside himself with joy. HAPPINESS IS A DISEASE Her good mood was contagious. HAPPINESS IS A FLUID IN A CONTAINER

Although some of these conceptual metaphors are more common than others (as indicated by Google searches), they can all be used when talking about happiness. The conceptual metaphors in the preceding list are called general emotion metaphors because each applies to some or most emotion concepts, not only to happiness. Metaphors Providing an Evaluation of Happiness

Some metaphors capture the appraisive (evaluative) aspect of happiness: Happiness IS LIGHT He was beaming with joy. Happiness IS FEELING LIGHT (not HEAVY) I was floating . Happiness IS UP I’m feeling up today. Happiness IS BEING IN HEAVEN I was in seventh heaven. Not surprisingly, these metaphors provide a highly positive valuation for the concept of happiness. The presence of light, not being weighed down, being up, and being in heaven are all very positive, unlike their opposites (dark, being weighed down, and being down), which characterize the opposite of happiness: sadness or depression. However, being in hell does not seem to characterize the contemporary conception of sadness (Tissari, 2008).


Metaphors Providing the Phenomenological Character of Happiness

was purring with delight. HAPPINESS IS A PLEASURABLE PHYSICAL SENSATION I was tickled pink . HAPPINESS IS BEING DRUNK It was an intoxicating experience. HAPPINESS IS VITALITY He was full of pep. HAPPINESS IS WARMTH What she said made me feel warm all over. HAPPINESS IS AN ANIMAL THAT LIVES WELL I

These conceptual metaphors give the “feeling tone” of happiness, that is, they depict the way happiness feels to the person experiencing it. The latter two types of conceptual metaphor may be correlated: For example, feeling warmth is normally evaluated as a positive experience. CONCEPTUAL METONYMIES OF HAPPINESS

The specific conceptual metonymies that apply to happiness correspond to behavioral, physiological, and expressive responses, as can be seen below. Behavioral Responses

( jump up and down with joy) DANCING/SINGING FOR HAPPINESS (dance with joy) JUMPING UP AND DOWN FOR HAPPINESS

Physiological Responses

( flush/beam with joy) INCREASED HEART RATE FOR HAPPINESGS (heart beats with joy) BODY WARMTH FOR HAPPINESS (be warm with joy) AGITATION/EXCITEMENT FOR HAPPINESS (be excited with joy) FLUSHING FOR HAPPINESS

Expressive Responses

(shine with happiness/joy) SMILING FOR HAPPINESS (smile/laugh) BRIGHT EYES FOR HAPPINESS

Happiness often manifests itself through such behavioral, physiological, and expressive responses. We can indicate our own or another person’s happiness by making reference to any one of these responses (see, e.g., Wierzbicka, 1999). For example, smiling is prototypically taken to be a sign of being happy. Furthermore, interestingly, we can find some degree of cultural variation in such responses. For example, in Buddhism, happiness is associated with reduced, rather than increased, heart rate. RELATED CONCEPTS

Similar to many other emotion concepts, happiness also consists of several “related concepts”—that is, concepts that are inherent in or closely related to the concept of happiness.

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These include: (FEELING OF) SATISFACTION (a satisfied baby, a satisfied smile) (FEELING OF) PLEASURE (do it with pleasure) (FEELING OF) HARMONY (feel happiness and harmony)

In prototypical cases, happiness assumes being satisfied with a certain outcome. The relation between happiness and satisfaction is indicated by the following dictionary definition of the word satisfaction: “1 : having a happy or pleased feeling because of something that you did or something that happened to you a satisfied customer There was a satisfied look/smile on her face” (MerriamWebster’s Learner’s Dictionary, electronic version). Happiness also entails a feeling of pleasure. Finally, when we are happy, we tend to feel in harmony with the world.

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PROTOTYPICAL COGNITIVE MODELS OF HAPPINESS

The theory of cognitive models applies to happiness as a category in the following way: The conceptual metaphors, conceptual metonymies, and related concepts mentioned earlier jointly converge on one or several prototypical cognitive models of happiness. (The details of this “joint convergence” are spelled out in Kövecses, 1991, 2002/2010a.) They either constitute the prototypical cognitive model(s) is (or are) based on it (them). I suggest that the general concept of HAPPINESS is best described as having three prototypical cognitive models and many nonprototypical ones clustering around the three prototypes. I refer to the three prototypes as “happiness as an immediate response,” “happiness as a value,” and “happiness as being glad.” I will deal only with the former two in this chapter. My specific suggestion is that it is these three uses of the concept of HAPPINESS that stand out among the many shades and kinds of meaning that the word happiness may be used to denote. They seem to be the most salient meanings— but, as we will see later, each for a different reason. Happiness as an Immediate Response

In “happiness as an immediate response,” a person responds with a form of happiness to a desired outcome. The form of happiness that is involved is commonly referred to as joy. I do not suggest that this is the only meaning of the word joy (see, e.g., Fabiszak, 2000: 299–303), but it is the one that I analyze here. As the preceding list of examples suggests, “happiness as an immediate response” corresponds to a special variety of happiness: joy. For this reason, I refer to this kind of happiness as “joy/happiness.” Given the conceptual metaphors, metonymies, and related concepts associated with joy/happiness and the language that exemplifies these, we can describe joy/happiness with the cognitive model that follows:


Cause of joy: You want to achieve something. You achieve it. There is an immediate emotional response to this on your part. Existence of joy: You are satisfied. You display a variety of expressive and behavioral responses including brightness of the eyes, smiling, laughing, jumping up and down. You feel energized. You also experience physiological responses, including body warmth and agitation/excitement. The context for the state is commonly a social one involving celebrations. You have a positive outlook on the world. You feel a need to communicate your feelings to others. The feeling you have may “spread” to others. You experience your state as a pleasurable one. You feel that you are in harmony with the world. You can’t help what you feel; you are passive in relation to your feelings. The intensity of your feelings and experiences is high. Beyond a certain limit, an increase in intensity implies a social danger for you to become dysfunctional, that is, to lose control. It is not entirely acceptable for you to communicate and/or give free expression to what you feel (i.e., to lose control). Attempt at control: Because it is not entirely acceptable to communicate and/or give free expression of what you feel, you try to keep the emotion under control: You attempt not to engage in the behavioral responses and/ or not to display the expressive responses and/or not communicate what you feel. Loss of control: You nevertheless lose control. Action: You engage in behavioral responses and/or display expressive responses and/or communicate what you feel. You may, in addition, exhibit wild, uncontrolled behavior (often in the form of dancing, singing, and energetic behavior with a lot of movement).

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It is debatable whether the part “attempt at control” is just as important with joy/happiness as with other, negative emotions. It seems to me that in Western culture intense forms of emotions are in general negatively valued, which would explain the presence of “attempt at control” in positive emotions. It can certainly be found in romantic love as well (Kövecses, 1988). However, this topic deserves further investigation. We can think of the emergence of this model from the specific metaphors, metonymies, and related concepts given above in the following way: Take, for instance, the idea that when we are very joyful/happy, there is some loss of control involved. An indicator of this idea is given in a number of conceptual metaphors, such as HAPPINESS IS A NATURAL FORCE, HAPPINESS IS AN OPPONENT, HAPPINESS IS A CAPTIVE ANIMAL, and HAPPINESS IS INSANITY. The typical linguistic examples of these metaphors suggest that the person who is intensely joyful/ happy is likely to undergo some loss of control (we are overwhelmed , we are seized , we go crazy, etc.). Thus, the language we use about happiness reveals the way we think about happiness, and the way we think about it is given in a prototypical cognitive model. This is the general methodology that I follow in this chapter. The “immediate response” model is a salient one because of its high degree of “noticeability.” It is dominated by highly noticeable behavioral, physiological, and expressive responses (i.e., conceptual metonymies) and also by conceptual content that is provided by conceptual metaphors suggesting intensity and control, leading eventually to a loss of control. This yields joy/happiness as a basic emotion that conforms to the general force-dynamic pattern of intense emotional events. Other basic emotions have a similar force-dynamic pattern, each with its characteristic response profile as reflected in language by the conceptual metonymies.

Happiness as a Value

By contrast, happiness as a value is not characterized by a forceful emotion interacting with an opposing self. Instead, this form of happiness is constituted by a quiet state with hardly any noticeable responses or even a clearly identifiable specific cause. (This is why some of its typical vague and general causes are given in parentheses in the list that follows.) Such a form of happiness is often captured by the following conceptual metaphors: He was beaming with joy. HAPPINESS IS FEELING LIGHT (not HEAVY) I was floating . HAPPINESS IS UP I’m feeling up today. HAPPINESS IS BEING IN HEAVEN I was in seventh heaven. HAPPINESS IS A HIDDEN DESIRED OBJECT At long last I have found happiness. HAPPINESS IS LIGHT


The first four conceptual metaphors provide a highly positive evaluation for the concept of HAPPINESS. (In the same way, their source domain opposites, DARK, HEAVY, DOWN [and, at least historically, HELL; see Tissari, 2008], provide a negative evaluation for opposite emotions, such as sadness and depression). In addition, they also display happiness as a pleasurable sensation and the related concepts of SATISFACTION and HARMONY (with the world) are emphatically present in this meaning. The fifth conceptual metaphor provides much of the content and structure of “happiness-as-a-value.” It follows from the HAPPINESS IS A HIDDEN DESIRED OBJECT metaphor that people search for it, that it is difficult to obtain, that people nevertheless put effort into finding it, that it takes a long time to obtain it, and that once found, it can be kept for a long time. Given the metaphors above, this can be given as follows: Goals in life: (freedom, health, wealth, love) Action in accordance with the goals: People try to obtain it. It is difficult to obtain. It requires effort to obtain it. It takes a long time to obtain it. Once people have obtained it, it lasts a long time. Desired result: Achieving goals → Happiness Happiness is associated with positive value. Happiness entails satisfaction. Happiness is pleasurable. Happiness gives you a feeling of harmony with the world. Because the HIDDEN DESIRED OBJECT and MOVING DESIRED OBJECT metaphors are versions of the higher-level HAPPINESS IS A DESIRED OBJECT metaphor, they share their mappings that give rise to several of the features that characterize the “happiness as a value” model. Additional features are derived from the four metaphors above. In contrast to “happiness as an immediate response,” “happiness as a value” is not characterized by highly salient emotional responses and a force-dynamically constituted control aspect. As we have seen, the two forms of happiness described earlier are referred to by means of different words in English— joy for “happiness as an immediate response” and happiness for “happiness as a value.” The distinction between joy and happiness in terms of distinctive sets of metaphors made by Kövecses (1991a) was borne out by later corpus linguistic studies (Stefanowitsch, 2004) and in cognitive psychological experiments (Tseng et al., 2007).

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Where Metaphors Come From Happiness in the United States Declaration of Independence

What is the model of happiness that the author(s) of the Declaration had in mind when they used the phrase “the pursuit of happiness”? Is it “happiness as an immediate response” or is it “happiness as a value”? One of the best-known uses of the word happiness can be found in the United States Declaration of Independence. The first sentences of the Declaration read: When in the Course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation. We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.—That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed,—That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. In the view expressed in the Declaration, the concept of HAPPINESS has several interesting properties. First, happiness is viewed as an (animal) object. The animal is moving away and people are pursuing it. In cognitive linguistics, this is called an “ontological” metaphor in which a state receives the ontological status of an object. This can be represented by the metaphor HAPPINESS IS AN OBJECT, sanctioned by the generic-level metaphor STATES ARE OBJECTS. Given this metaphor, it is possible to pursue happiness (i.e., to obtain or acquire it). It is also viewed as a desired resulting state-object that can be brought about or produced (effect). Second, in the view of the Declaration, people are not inherently happy, but they can institute governments that create conditions in which they can become happy, that is, they can achieve happiness. The notion that happiness is to be achieved in a particular social arrangement gives happiness the character of secular state, as opposed to a religious (Christian) state, in which people are naturally happy as a result of God’s grace (discussed in a later section). As indicated by the phrase the “ pursuit of happiness,” happiness is a desired state; we are pursuing it because we want to obtain it. We can call this the HAPPINESS IS A DESIRED OBJECT metaphor (again, based on STATES ARE OBJECTS). The DESIRED OBJECT metaphor comes in two versions. In one, the desired animal


object is moving away from us (the pursuer) and we are pursuing it. In the other, the desired object is hidden and this is what makes it difficult for us to find it. HAPPINESS IS A DESIRED OBJECT

Version one: MOVING DESIRED OBJECT Mappings: The desired object The movement (of the object) away from us The pursuer (of the object) The pursuit (of)/trying to catch (the object) The desire (to catch the object) Catching the object

→ → → → → →

the happiness the difficulty (of obtaining the object) the person (trying to obtain happiness) trying to obtain/attain happiness the desire (for happiness) obtaining happiness

Version two: HIDDEN DESIRED OBJECT Mappings: The desired object The “hidden-ness” (of the object from us) The seeker (of the object) The search (for the object) The desire (to find the object) Finding the object

→ → → → → →

the happiness the difficulty (of obtaining the object) the person (trying to obtain happiness) trying to obtain/attain happiness the desire (for happiness) obtaining happiness

I discussed the HAPPINESS IS A DESIRED OBJECT metaphor in the subsection on happiness as a value. Clearly, it is the MOVING DESIRED OBJECT version of the metaphor that applies to and explains the phrase “pursuit of happiness” in the Declaration. In the two versions, both the pursuer and the seeker move closer to the desired object until they get to it. Success is achieved when this happens. As a result of this feature, the HAPPINESS IS A DESIRED OBJECT metaphor coincides or overlaps with a well-known metaphor for life: A PURPOSEFUL LIFE IS A JOURNEY. Given this metaphor, we have a successful life when we get to where we wanted to be (i.e., reach our immediate or more distant destination); that is, when we reach our goals. This (immediate or more distant) destination, this goal, corresponds to the desired object of the HAPPINESS IS A DESIRED OBJECT metaphor. Getting to one’s destination in life (considered as success) is the same as catching the animal or finding the object (becoming happy). This is the mapping that provides the overlap between the HAPPINESS IS A DESIRED OBJECT and the LIFE IS A JOURNEY metaphors. Thus, the conceptualization of LIFE and that of HAPPINESS are intimately connected, in that success in life makes us happy. But it should be noticed that the Declaration talks about the “ pursuit (of happiness)” as an inalienable right, and not about happiness itself. In other

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words, happiness itself is not guaranteed for everyone, only the possibility of pursuing it. How can the pursuit of happiness be guaranteed? The HAPPINESS IS A DESIRED OBJECT and the PURPOSEFUL LIFE IS A JOURNEY metaphors both contain the idea of motion toward an object (desired object) that is the destination of the pursuer. If the motion toward the object/destination is unobstructed in the source domain, then one has the freedom to achieve happiness/success. That is to say, we need a third metaphor in our account: FREEDOM TO ACT IS FREEDOM TO MOVE, and even more generally, ACTION IS MOTION (see the Event Structure Metaphor in Lakoff, 1993). The phrase “pursuit of happiness” also fits the FREEDOM TO ACT IS FREEDOM TO MOVE metaphor. The metaphor gives us an idea of the precise nature of this “unalienable right.” It is the right to be able to pursue happiness unobstructed by others; that is, to be able to obtain the state of happiness in a free manner. This reading of the Declaration arises if we do not regard the three inalienable rights (life, liberty, pursuit of happiness) as simply a list of independent rights. We can conceive of them as a meaningful sequence of concepts instead, in which life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness are closely related by virtue of their meaning. I pointed out in the previous paragraphs that the concept of LIFE overlaps with the DESIRED OBJECT metaphor for happiness (in that success in life corresponds to achieving happiness) and that success/happiness can only be achieved if the process of achieving it happens freely, that is, if, metaphorically, the movement toward it is unobstructed. In my view, then, the three seemingly unrelated and independent rights (“right-concepts”) form a tightly connected system of ideas by virtue of the three metaphors that characterize them, and thus they are anything but a list or a random set of rights in the Declaration. In summary, the DESIRED OBJECT metaphor for happiness, the JOURNEY metaphor for life, and the FREEDOM TO MOVE metaphor for freedom (to act) as characterized above provide us with a certain conception of HAPPINESS that can be given as follows: in the United States Declaration of Independence: Goals in life: HAPPINESS

Happiness is one of people’s main life goals. It is a desired state. It is an inalienable right of all people. Action in accordance with the goals: It is the responsibility of government to make sure that people can obtain it. People devote their lives to trying to obtain it. People try to attain it. It is difficult to obtain. It requires effort to obtain it.


It takes a long time to obtain it. Once people have obtained it, it lasts a long time. Desired result: Achieving goals → Happiness Although this partly metaphor-based view of happiness in the Declaration provides some idea of the nature of happiness and the manner in which it can be achieved, it does not tell us much about the global content of the concept as spelled out in the everyday models. In comparison with the “value” model, the Declaration-based model in addition includes the following: It is an inalienable right of all people. It is one of people’s main life goals. People devote their lives to trying to obtain it. It is the responsibility of government to make sure that people can obtain it. The feature that happiness is an inalienable right of all people derives from the explicit (and literal) reference to this in the Declaration. The features that happiness is a major life goal and that people devote much of their lives to obtaining it comes from the LIFE IS A JOURNEY metaphor and commonsense reasoning concerning desired life goals. The feature that mentions the responsibility of government is again stated literally in the Declaration. In other words, some of the features in the Declaration-based model are shared by the happiness-as-avalue model (this is why they can be viewed as similar), while others are present only in the Declaration. The explicitly stated features regarding happiness being an inalienable right and the responsibility of the government make the Declaration model a secular one, whereas their absence from “happiness as a value” make the “value” model an alternative (nonsecular) everyday model. We can now ask what the nonsecular (and non-everyday) religious model of happiness is like in Christian thought. Happiness in the Bible

In this section, I explore the concept of happiness in the New Testament. The English translation of the concept in the New Testament ( blessed ) is based on the Greek term that meant “happy” (makarios). Another indicator of the close connection between the biblical sense and the everyday sense is that in some languages, such as Hungarian, the word with the everyday sense of happy (Hung. boldog ) is used in the translation of the New Testament. In the Bible, the adjective blessed means “(blissfully) happy” (compare the meanings listed in the Oxford English Dictionary [OED]).

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1. Consecrated, hallowed, holy; consecrated by a religious rite or ceremony 2. That is the object of adoring reverence, adorable, worthy to be blessed by men 3. a Enjoying supreme felicity; happy, fortunate In the Christian tradition, to be or feel blessed is to be in a holy state that is defined with reference to God. How does this concept of HAPPINESS (BEING BLESSED) compare with the everyday conception of HAPPINESS and with what we found in the Declaration? I will try to shed some light on this by analyzing a set of sayings called Beatitudes from the New Testament. The Beatitudes provide the best place in the Bible for the examination of Christian “happiness.” Consider the sayings (Beatitudes) below: 1. When Jesus saw the crowds, He went up on the mountain; and after He sat down, His disciples came to Him. 2. He opened His mouth and began to teach them, saying, 3. “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” 4. “Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.” 5. “Blessed are the gentle, for they shall inherit the earth.” 6. “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied.” 7. “Blessed are athe merciful, for they shall receive mercy.” 8. “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.” 9. “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God.” 10. “Blessed are those who have been persecuted for the sake of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” 11. “Blessed are you when people insult you and persecute you, and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of Me.” 12. “Rejoice and be glad, for your reward in heaven is great; for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you.” (Matthew V. 3-12, Bible Gateway) The name Beatitudes comes in part from the Latin adjective beatus, - a, which means “blessed,” “fortunate,” sometimes “saint” (according to Freedictionary. com). In contrast to the previously discussed models of HAPPINESS (the secular model of the Declaration and the everyday models), which are given largely in metaphorical language, the model of happiness in the Beatitudes is essentially literal. I say “essentially,” because the Beatitudes clearly contain metaphorically used words (e.g., poor in heart, hunger for righteousness), but these are not directly used in the conceptualization of the concept of HAPPINESS, as in the cases discussed previously. The list of required features for being blessed/happy in the Beatitudes includes the following (my interpretations are based on J. W. McGarvey and


Philip Y. Pendleton The Fourfold Gospel [1914] retrieved from http://www. biblestudyguide.org/comment/mcgarvey/four-fold-gospel/FFG000.HTM): a. The poor in spirit (i.e., who are not full of themselves, who are not arrogant, who are not feeling superior to others, who are modest) b. Who mourn (i.e., who feel guilty because of their sins) c. The gentle (i.e., the kind, peaceful, and patient) d. Who hunger and thirst for righteousness (i.e., who desire what’s morally good) e. The merciful (i.e., the forgiving) f. The pure in heart (i.e., who are free of evil desires and purposes) g. The peacemakers (i.e., who make peace between people) The features given in points a–g (let us call them “features X”)—modest, remorseful, kind and peaceful, morally good, forgiving, free of evil desires and purposes, peace-making—are like the characteristics of Jesus and indeed those of God; they are divine characteristics. The possession of these divine characteristics makes people similar to Jesus and God. Why and how can the features X given by Jesus make anyone blessed/happy? The list of rewards as given in points a’-g’ below (let us call them “features Y”) for possessing the features X above include the following (my interpretations are again based on J. W. McGarvey and Philip Y. Pendleton The Fourfold Gospel [1914] retrieved from http://www.biblestudyguide.org/comment/mcgarvey/four-fold-gospel/FFG000.HTM): a′. Theirs is the kingdom of heaven. b′. They shall be comforted. c′. They shall inherit the earth. d′. They shall be satisfied. e′. They shall receive mercy. f ′. They shall see God. g′. They shall be called sons of God. In most cases, the rewards Y are complementary to and entailed by the features X. For example, people who feel guilty because of their sins will be comforted, people who hunger for what’s morally good will be satisfied, and so forth. Some other features will simply entail certain rewards. For example, people who are free of evil desires and purposes shall see God. In general, rewards Y make it worthwhile to possess the features X and make it also worthwhile to suffer from the consequences of any of the opposite features that people might possess in the human world. The sayings (Beatitudes) have the following structure:

Those who have features X now are blessed/happy because they will receive rewards Y later on.

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A significant aspect of the structure “feature X now, reward Y later” is that people are blessed/happy because of what will happen to them. Note, however, that the last three sayings have a slightly different structure: 10. “Blessed are those who have been persecuted for the sake of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” 11. “Blessed are you when people insult you and persecute you, and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of Me.” 12. “Rejoice and be glad, for your reward in heaven is great; for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you. (Matthew V. 3-12, Bible Gateway) In these (10, 11, and 12), it is not the possession of a feature that makes one blessed/happy but what other people have done or do to those who possess features X. In other words, the three sayings describe the consequences of what can happen to people who possess features X, and that these consequences can make one blessed/happy. For this reason, 10 through 12 are not considered to be on the same footing as 3 through 9. In addition, the saying in 12 has a further noteworthy characteristic. It is that some of the words used in it ( rejoice and be glad ) seem to point to the conceptualization of happiness as “happiness as an immediate response” (i.e., what was characterized as joy/happiness), which is the most salient model of HAPPINESS in everyday English. This is indicated especially by the use of the word rejoice that is clearly related to joy. If this argument is correct, it can be suggested that the statement of the New Testament version of happiness contains a plea for people to be happy in the everyday sense of the term, that is, achieving happiness in the Biblical sense must make us happy in the everyday sense as well. How does the biblical (New Testament) model compare in detail with the two everyday models (happiness as an immediate response and happiness as a value) outlined previously in the chapter, on the one hand, and with the secular model of the Declaration, on the other? First, let us consider “happiness as an immediate response.” In the everyday model, you want to achieve something, you achieve it, and as a result you are happy. The cause precedes the state of happiness in time. In the realm of the sacred, it is a future cause that makes you happy. You are blessed/happy now because something good will happen to you later. As a result, it is a long-lasting state that is fueled by the anticipation of what will come, rather than by what happened before. The religiously blessed/happy person does not undergo any kind of immediate emotional response and his or her happiness may not always be a pleasurable feeling. By contrast, happiness in the everyday, human world gives people immediate and short-term pleasure. Happiness as an immediate response is characterized by people being physiologically and behaviorally aroused and active in the everyday world. This is


not the case in the sacred world, where people’s happiness is not displayed in their physiological and behavioral reactions but in their inner life and their attitude to other people. Whereas people’s reactions in the everyday world can often lead to a loss of control over their emotions, this cannot be found in the sacred. In the everyday model of HAPPINESS as an immediate response, you want to achieve something and you achieve it; this makes you happy. In the sacred, there is no personal achievement, like winning a competition; there is only a state, a characteristic that makes you different from most other people. This is a characteristic that goes against the “norms” of the human world, and if you possess it, other people may consider you “weak” (just as many looked at Jesus as being weak because He did not fight the fights of the human world). So far I have compared the first everyday model (happiness as an immediate response) with the biblical one. Let us now turn to the comparison of the second everyday model (happiness as a value) with what we find in the Bible. It was mentioned previously that in the New Testament model people are blessed/ happy because of the good that will happen to them later and that the good that happens to them is something divine that comes from God. In contrast, the “value model” works on the principle of “having a certain cause now makes us happy.” In addition, the causes involved in it are worldly ones, whereas in the New Testament model they are divine. What is shared by the “value view” of HAPPINESS and the biblical model is that neither produces salient responses, that they last a long time, and they are both characterized by the feeling of harmony with the world. Finally, we can also ask what the relationship is between the concept of HAPPINESS in the sacred and in the secular worlds. As we saw in the Declaration of Independence, happiness is a desired state. In the sacred world, it is not; it is a state that is widely available to everyone (it is a gift as God’s grace), so it is not an object of desire. In the Declaration, the pursuit of happiness is an inalienable right of the people. In the sacred world, it is not a right, let alone an inalienable one; you simply have it if you possess some or all of the characteristics that are required by Jesus—but only then. In the secular world, it is a major life goal; in the sacred world, it is a way of life. In the secular world, happiness is difficult to obtain, it requires effort to obtain it, and it takes a long time to obtain it. In the sacred world, it is both very easy and very difficult to obtain. It is easy because people “only” have to believe in God. However, it is not so easy when people try to follow the teachings of Jesus on a daily basis. Finally, the Declaration of Independence states that the government is responsible to make sure that people can obtain happiness. By contrast, Christianity does not appeal to the state to guarantee happiness; it leaves it to individual people. Jesus asks people to make a responsible decision for themselves whether they want to be blessed/happy or not.

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Where Metaphors Come From Conclusions

I examined the concept of HAPPINESS in three very different historical and cultural contexts: contemporary everyday English, the Declaration of Independence, and the New Testament. As a matter of fact, the study of contemporary English yielded not just one but two prototypical models (meanings) for the concept (happiness as an immediate response and happiness as a value). The contemporary everyday idea of happiness comes in two versions: “happiness as an immediate response” (joy/happiness) and “happiness as a value” (happiness “proper”). Both the immediate response and the happiness as value versions are constituted by a number of conceptual metaphors, metonymies, and related concepts. The more salient prototype of the everyday notion of HAPPINESS (as immediate response) is composed by a variety of forcedynamic metaphors and metonymies indicating various bodily reactions, and some inherent concepts. Happiness as an immediate response does not seem to be defined by a major constitutive conceptual metaphor, such as THE ANGRY PERSON IS A PRESSURIZED CONTAINER for anger (see Chapter 5). Instead, a variety of general emotion metaphors are used to create aspects of the concept. The concept fits our general lay understanding of what emotions are (short events) and what stages they consist of (cause, existence, control, etc.). What makes happiness as an immediate response unique as an emotion is a set of distinctive metonymies indicating physiological, expressive, and behavioral reactions (e.g., BODY WARMTH), as well as some inherent concepts (SATISFACTION, HARMONY, PLEASURE ). Happiness as a value is, however, constituted, in the main, by a set of distinctive metaphors: HAPPINESS IS LIGHT, HAPPINESS IS NOT HEAVY, HAPPINESS IS UP, HAPPINESS IS BEING IN HEAVEN, and, most importantly, HAPPINESS IS A HIDDEN OBJECT. The concept is also characterized by a strong evaluative component (deriving from the UPWARD-oriented evaluative metaphors) and the inherent concept of HARMONY. Given these metaphors, people are seen as having some general purposes in life that they want to achieve. They act in accordance with those purposes. When their purposes are fulfilled, they are happy, and this gives them a sense of harmony with the world. The model of HAPPINESS in the Declaration portrays the concept as a desired future state, a goal to be achieved. It is the government’s duty to make it possible for people to achieve it. The purpose of human life and the desire to be happy largely coincide. Simply put, happiness itself is a life goal. This concept does not tell us much about the internal structure and content of HAPPINESS. The model of HAPPINESS that the Declaration provides comes from three conceptual metaphors: HAPPINESS IS A MOVING DESIRED OBJECT, A PURPOSEFUL LIFE IS A JOURNEY, and FREE ACTION IS FREE MOTION. It is these three metaphors that largely constitute the concept.


The structure of the concept of HAPPINESS in the New Testament is very different from that of the previous ones. One can be blessed/happy now if we possess certain features now (“those who have certain features X now are blessed/ happy”). That is to say, to be blessed/happy requires the fulfillment of a set of preconditions. In addition, the source or cause of people’s happiness derives from certain future rewards (“because they will receive rewards Y later on”). In this model, the cause follows the resulting state (of happiness) in time, whereas in all the other cases the cause precedes the state (of happiness). Also, unlike the other models, the New Testament model is spelled out predominantly in literal, nonmetaphorical language. However, it requires the acceptance of a Christian worldview that is metaphorical. In this worldview, there is an all-powerful God and Jesus Christ is his son who can provide people with the rewards he promised. The Christian view is based on a large and intricate system of metaphors (see Lakoff, 1996; Kövecses, 2007). In this chapter, we have seen how different historical and cultural contexts influence and shape the concept of HAPPINESS. This shaping effect results primarily from the conceptual devices that constitute the way we speak and think about emotions: conceptual metaphors, conceptual metonymies, and related concepts. The different cultural contexts favor different conceptualizations that result in different cognitive models (or frames) of happiness. Of all the large network of concepts that constitute the everyday concept of happiness, the metaphorical expression “the pursuit of happiness” was selected by the authors of the Declaration because this was the metaphor relevant to the expression of one of the rights-concepts; that people have the right to obtain happiness. This target domain meaning is based on the mapping “the pursuit of the object → trying to attain happiness” in the HAPPINESS IS A MOVING DESIRED OBJECT metaphor. The purpose of the communicative situation called for and justified the use of this particular metaphorical expression. Given that the HAPPINESS IS A MOVING DESIRED OBJECT conceptual metaphor exists and given its mappings, it was the natural choice for the authors. No additional countervailing contextual factors seemed to override the choice. The mental activation of the metaphor produced by the expression “the pursuit of happiness” is probably limited to the activation of the directly relevant mapping, the other mappings in the conceptual metaphor HAPPINESS IS A MOVING OBJECT, together with the Declaration model based on this metaphor (probably with a decreasing degree of intensity)—it is unlikely that the activation extends to the entire happiness system described in the chapter. In the case of the New Testament, Jesus approaches the concept in largely nonmetaphorical ways. He redefines happiness in a unique manner, mostly in terms of cause and effect that does not require metaphors to any significant degree. The purpose of the discourse and the situation (giving people hope) enables him to reconceptualize the concept without the use of metaphors.

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In light of the analyses of a large number and varied set of examples in the previous chapters, in this last chapter I attempt to pull the pieces together and offer a (hopefully) coherent view of metaphorical meaning making in context. I suggest that such an account must begin with a general characterization of communication and, within that, metaphorical communication. The crucial elements of this include the notions of relevant context, referential scene, joint attention, joint action, and common ground, as proposed by a number of scholars in the past decade or so. I will point out the significance of these notions for a theory of metaphor creation in context. Based on the many case studies in the book, in the chapter I will propose a dozen commonly occurring contextual factors that seem to play a role in the creation of metaphors in real discourse. The contextual factors can be grouped into a number of larger types: situational, linguistic, conceptual-cognitive, and bodily factors. The contextual factors can be arranged along two important gradients: one, the local to global gradient, the other, the gradient of time. I will claim, furthermore, that the various contextual factors corresponding to a variety of experiences can prompt, or prime, the use of particular metaphors on real occasions of metaphorical conceptualization. I consider such uses of metaphor as resulting from “in vivo” priming that happens in the real world (as opposed to an experimental situation). Following Van Dijk (2008), I suggest that priming takes place through the mediation of “context models,” or frames, and not directly affecting our metaphorical conceptual system. I hypothesize that people construct such context models for metaphorical conceptualization aided by the frequently occurring contextual factors. Finally, I briefly examine the relationship between conceptual metaphor theory, some recent theories of cognition, and the view of metaphor in context, as it emerged from the case studies in this work. In line with current theories


of the embodied mind and grounded cognition, I show that the “metaphorical mind,” that is, metaphorical meaning making, is affected and shaped not only by the body (as context), but also by the linguistic, conceptual-cognitive, and situational contexts.

Metaphorical Meaning Making and Communication

Metaphorical meaning making and communication is an aspect of meaning making and communication in general. General theories developed by linguists, psychologists, philosophers, and so on, working along the same or similar lines as I do in this book also apply to metaphorical meaning making and communication. To be able to see how context affects the creation and comprehension of metaphorical meaning, let us briefly review some relevant theories of meaning making in context. I briefly discuss several such theories. All of these assume that human meaning making is best characterized as occurring in face-to-face communicative situations; it is the prototype of how humans communicate and from which many and different kinds of deviations can be found. RELEVANT CONTEXT

Inferring speakers’ intentions in (metaphorical) utterances has occupied the attention of philosophers, such as Grice and Searle, since the 1950s. It is clear that a crucial issue in the enterprise of metaphorical meaning making is finding the appropriate context in which the use of a particular metaphor can be interpreted, and can be interpreted correctly. To phrase the issue this way is to phrase it from the perspective of the hearer (conceptualizer 2). The question from the perspective of the speaker (conceptualizer 1) is: What is it in the present context that I can make use of to create the appropriate metaphor that the hearer can understand and will interpret correctly? Although the two questions obviously overlap to a large degree, I have been primarily concerned with the second question in this book and will continue to do so in the present chapter. However, the literature on the subject focuses mainly on the perspective of the hearer (conceptualizer 2), who comprehends a metaphorical expression in context. The most elaborate account of finding the appropriate context for comprehending (metaphorical) utterances is that provided by Sperber and Wilson (1986/1995). Interestingly, Sperber and Wilson (2008) offer a “deflationary theory” of metaphor—a theory that can explain metaphor interpretation without recognizing the independent ontological status of metaphor as such (hence, a “deflationary” theory). For Sperber and Wilson, the understanding of a metaphorical sentence is an inferential process that yields a particular meaning that

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fits (a part of) the context in which the utterance occurs. Whether their account of metaphorical meaning making is viable as a cognitively real process is an issue (see Gibbs and Tendahl, 2011). Of particular interest in their account in the present connection is the notion of “mutual cognitive environment.” (For an extended discussion of the strengths and weaknesses of “relevance theory” from a conceptual-metaphortheory and, more generally, a cognitive linguistic, perspective, see Ritchie, 2006.) The notion of mutual cognitive environment seems, overall, compatible with the idea of context as developed here, though some of the details and the distinctions I make to characterize it may not be acceptable to practitioners of relevance theory. In later sections of this chapter, I will outline the most common components of such a cognitive environment (i.e., context), as these emerge from the studies in previous chapters. Given these components, I suggest a schematic representation of contextual information that conceptualizers may rely on when they comprehend and produce metaphorical meaning in context. REFERENTIAL SCENE AND JOINT ATTENTION

As Sinha (2007) notes, reaching back to Bühler’s Organon model, in a communicative situation a speaker makes an utterance by making use of a set of linguistic (or other) symbols. In doing so, he or she directs the attention of the hearer to a referential situation, which is about an object, event, state, and so on. The symbols used (symbolically) represent the referential situation. The symbols not only represent a referential situation but they also express the communicative intention of the speaker and, at the same time, they “appeal[s] to the hearer to direct their own intentional processes toward the referential situation” (Sinha, 2007: 1282). Furthermore, the symbols used create a sphere of joint attention between the speaker and the hearer. The speaker expresses an intention and the hearer intentionally interprets this intention. Tomasello (1999) emphasizes this notion of intersubjectivity from a developmental perspective. This could be represented in Figure 10.1 taken from Sinha (2007: 1282). Metaphorical meaning making is no different in this regard. When we conceptualize something metaphorically and communicate it to someone else, we also provide a symbolic representation of a referential situation, but this time the representation by linguistic (or other) means will be metaphorical. Similarly, a sphere of joint attention is created, but it is created by the use of metaphor. We have seen a large number of examples throughout this book for how people represent referential situations of all kinds by means of metaphor and how, thereby, they create a sphere of joint attention. Not all the communicative situations were of the face-to-face kind, but several of them were (see examples especially in Chapters 4 and 6). The real issue for us in this book, though, was to see how and why the specific contexts (communicative situation, discourse,


Referential Situation

Representation

Symbol

Expression

Speaker FIGURE 10.1

Appeal

Hearer

Sinha’s variant of Bühler’s Organon model. (Reproduced with permission of Oxford

University Press.)

etc.) in which metaphorical conceptualization takes place influence this process, that is, the production of metaphors in discourse. JOINT ACTION AND COMMON GROUND

Using symbols with another about a referential situation as part of a communicative exchange, that is, symbolically representing it for the other, is a form of “joint action” (Clark, 1996). When people engage in a conversation, they are coordinating their utterances in the same way as people coordinate their actions, say, playing tennis. Furthermore, using symbols (making utterances), just like other joint actions, assumes a large amount of shared knowledge between speaker and hearer. Clark (1996) calls this “common ground.” Coordinated actions and coordinated symbolic representations of referential situations are based on knowledge (common ground) that speaker and hearer share. Not sharing skills, facts, beliefs, or information make joint actions and meaning making in a (communicative) situation difficult or unsuccessful. Clark stresses that for something to be common ground it must have a shared basis. He mentions two kinds of bases as evidence for common ground: “evidence about the cultural community people belong to” and “evidence from people’s direct experiences with each other” (Clark, 1996: 100). Clark calls the former “communal common ground” and the latter “personal common ground.” Using metaphorical language is also joint action that, at least in successful cases, requires common ground. Many of the examples in this book demonstrated the shared knowledge (physical, social, cultural, linguistic, etc.) between speaker and hearer. This issue primarily relates to metaphor comprehension. If the user of metaphor wants to be understood, he or she must use a metaphor that

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is based on the common ground shared by the hearer. Without such common ground metaphor comprehension cannot take place in most cases. As regards the bases for common ground, Clark argues that if we know that someone belongs to a particular group, this is enough evidence for us to make certain assumptions about this person. The assumptions we make can be either “inside information” or “outside information.” We have inside information when we belong to the same group and we have outside information when we are outsiders to the group. A “cultural community” is a group of people who share a great deal of information that others don’t (Clark, 1996: 101). The shared information constitutes a certain degree of “expertise” that people may have. It is this expertise that is assumed to be shared by other members of the same group. The basis for expertise may be one’s nationality, occupation, religion, residence, language, subculture, and a number of other things. The mental representation of this kind of information is like an encyclopedia composed of a variety of different conceptual frames, or models. Essentially, this is the same idea that I presented in Chapter 5 for the concept of culture (dubbed “culture 1”). In that chapter, I defined culture, together with some (cognitive) anthropologists, as a shared set of frames, or models, where the frames represent our knowledge of the world. In cultures, subcultures, and smaller groups within the culture, where people share most of the distinctive frames, the use of culture-, subculture-, or group-specific metaphors based on these frames will be effortlessly understood by the members. According to Clark, the basis for personal common ground ultimately derives from two sources: shared perceptual experience and joint action. We often direct each other’s attention to things or events by gestures to establish personal common ground, or we may simply participate in the same perceptual activity by either noticing that the other person is noticing something or being exposed together to a salient perceptual experience, such as a loud noise. Another major type of source for establishing personal common ground is participating in joint action. Engaging jointly in an activity (such as playing a game) establishes common ground to the participants. Using language is a kind of joint action. The personal common ground is likely to be represented in memory in the form of what Clark calls “personal diary”—a mental log of experiences that two (or more) people share. One example of shared perceptual experience that was discussed in Chapter 4 is the loud noise produced by a rock band at the G8 summit, and that allowed a commentator to make a remark that was turned into the following statement by a journalist (taken from Semino, 2008): “Dr Kumi Naidoo, from the anti-poverty lobby group G-Cap, said after ‘the roar’ produced by Live 8, the G8 had uttered ‘a whisper.’” The shared perceptual experience made it possible to create a novel metaphor that was understood easily by the journalist and the readers of the newspaper article; they had the same perceptual experience either directly or indirectly.


Common Contextual Factors

What are the specific instances of either the communal common ground or the personal common ground that produce metaphors? The use of metaphors in discourse seems to be influenced by a large variety of contextual factors. I reviewed many of these in the preceding chapters, including at least the following: KNOWLEDGE ABOUT THE MAIN ELEMENTS OF THE DISCOURSE

These include knowledge about the speaker, the hearer, and the topic of the discourse. In the course of metaphor production, the knowledge about the speaker assumes the form of self-knowledge. This was exemplified by the case of Frank Jump, a New York photographer with HIV, whose knowledge about himself led to the novel metaphor SURVIVING AIDS DESPITE PREDICTIONS TO THE CONTRARY IS FOR THE OLD MURAL ADVERTISEMENTS TO SURVIVE THEIR EXPECTED

“LIFE SPAN.” Knowledge

about the topic as a contextual factor was seen in the example involving David Beckham, Los Angeles Galaxy are sardines not sharks in the ocean of footy, where the relevant knowledge includes that Beckham played for the Los Angeles Galaxy soccer team and that Los Angeles is located on the ocean with all kinds of fish in it. Finally, knowledge about the hearer includes the nationality of the hearer (see Chapter 6), which may guide the use of metaphors, as was suggested in the example with Fabio Capello, the Italian coach. SURROUNDING DISCOURSE

The surrounding discourse is simply the linguistic context—the cotext. Viewed from the perspective of the producer of discourse, the speaker, elements of the preceding discourse (either by the speaker/conceptualizer 1 or the hearer/ conceptualizer 2) can influence the choice of metaphors, as was shown in the example from The Times: which helped to tilt the balance—and Mr Hain—over the edge in Chapter 6. PREVIOUS DISCOURSES ON THE SAME TOPIC

The metaphors used in previous discourses on the same topic as the current discourse can also introduce new metaphors into the discourse. This can take a variety of forms ranging from elaborating, extending, questioning, negating, reflecting on, ridiculing, to otherwise taking advantage of a metaphor previously introduced. The Tony Blair example, borrowed from Semino (2008) and discussed in Chapter 6, is a case in point: But when you’re on the edge of a cliff it is good to have a reverse gear, a humorous twist on the PROGRESS IS MOTION FORWARD conceptual metaphor.

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Where Metaphors Come From DOMINANT FORMS OF DISCOURSE AND INTERTEXTUALITY

Certain forms of discourse can acquire dominant status in a community. When this happens, the metaphor used in or based on this discourse can become widespread both temporally and spatially. The example used to demonstrate this kind of intertextuality was the discourse of Christianity and, in it, one of the parables of Jesus involving the lost sheep (see Chapter 4).

IDEOLOGY UNDERLYING DISCOURSE

Ideology can be a major source of which metaphors are selected in metaphorical conceptualization. A good example of this is George Lakoff’s (1996) study of American politics, where conservatives tend to use THE NATION IS A STRICT FATHER FAMILY metaphor, while liberals prefer THE NATION IS A NURTURANT PARENT FAMILY version of the generic metaphor THE NATION IS A FAMILY. For another example we can mention the Marxist version of the SOCIETY IS A BUILDING metaphor with talk about superstructure, and so on, or the Marxist idea of class struggle. Goatly (2007) is a major exploration into the metaphor-based ideology of capitalism.


The physical environment can also shape metaphorical meaning making. The physical environment includes the flora, the fauna, the landscape, the temperature, the weather, and so on. For example, American English metaphors relating to the physical environment are characteristically different from those of other English-speaking countries. The small-scale, local environment, such as the visible events in a situation, can also make its influence felt in shaping metaphors. One example that was considered in this category was the consequences of the hurricane Katrina in Fats Domino’s life and the resulting metaphorical conceptualization.

SOCIAL SITUATION

Social aspects of life typically center around notions such as gender, class, politeness, work, education, social organizations, social structure, and others. All of these can play a role in metaphorical conceptualization. For example, Kolodny (1975, 1984) shows that American men and women developed very different metaphorical images for what they conceived of as America. Ways of working and various work implements can also give rise to metaphorical source domains, as we saw, for example, in the case of how Fats Domino’s life was metaphorically understood by the journalist who interviewed him.


CULTURAL SITUATION

The cultural situation involves what was dubbed in Chapters 5 and 6 culture 1 and culture 2. The former corresponds to the global context (the shared knowledge represented in the conceptual system) and the latter to the local context (the specific knowledge in a given communicative situation). An example of how culture 1 can affect metaphorical conceptualization can be seen in the way different concepts can produce differential metaphors in different cultures and languages, such as the metaphors for anger: ANGER IS HEAT (OF FLUID OR SOLID) in a large number of languages such as English and Hungarian, whereas in Chinese the metaphor can also involve GAS as its source domain—as a result of the influence of Yin and Yang theory (see Yu, 1998). Closer to culture 2 was the example used in Chapter 6 about the movie “The rise of the machines.” In this case, it is the more immediate context that, in part, primes the use of this metaphor. HISTORY-MEMORY

By history here I mean the memory of events in the life of a community or individual. It has been often observed that the memory of historical events can lead to the production (and comprehension) of some metaphors (see, e.g., Deignan, 2003; Kövecses, 2005). An example mentioned in Chapter 6 is how the different historical contexts create differential preferences for particular LIFE metaphors among Hungarians and Americans. The particular events in a specific communicative situation preceding an act of metaphorical conceptualization may also produce similar effects. INTERESTS AND CONCERNS

Entire groups and individuals can be said to have certain characteristic interests or concerns that may affect the way they make meaning metaphorically. Since Americans are claimed to be dynamically oriented, rather than passive, in their attitude to life, and, relatedly, are sports-loving in general, it is not surprising that they use a large number of sports metaphors. Similarly, if a person has some kind of professional interest, that person is likely to draw metaphors from his or her sphere of interest (for examples, see Kövecses, 2005 and Chapter 6). TWO POTENTIAL ADDITIONAL CONTEXTUAL FACTORS INFLUENCING METAPHOR USE

As I indicated in several chapters (e.g., Chapters 1 and 3), it seems to be possible to look at the body and the conceptual system in general as part of the context that can influence metaphorical conceptualization.

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Where Metaphors Come From THE BODY AS CONTEXT

Instead of regarding the body as one of the two major pressures of coherence in the (metaphorical) conceptual system, as I have done so far (and also in Kövecses, 2005, 2010b), we can take the body as a further aspect of the context— among the many others listed above. On this view, the body—especially those aspects of it that are activated in the ongoing situation—can influence the choice of metaphors. One important difference between the body and the factors briefly described previously as contextual factors seems to have to do with the timeframe over which it can exert its influence on metaphorical conceptualization (a topic to which I return later). The body is not only responsible for the production of hundreds of conceptual metaphors through the many correlations in subjective and sensorymotor experience (cf. Grady, 1997a, b; Lakoff and Johnson, 1999), but it can also prime the use of particular metaphors in more immediate, local contexts (see, e.g, Boroditsky, 2001, Boroditsky and Ramscar, 2002; Gibbs, 2006; Gibbs and Colston, 2012). In other words, it can lead to the production of metaphors in discourse in the same way as the other contextual factors previously mentioned can. This change in our view of the status of the body would imply that the idea according to which the body and context that were seen as being in diametrical opposition would have to be abandoned and that it would have to be recognized that the body can produce metaphors locally as well, not only globally and universally. Moreover, individual bodily specificities can have an influence on which metaphors are used by particular people. For example, Casasanto (2009) found that left-handers prefer to use the MORAL IS LEFT, as opposed to the MORAL IS RIGHT, conceptual metaphor and I showed in Chapter 7 how Dickinson’s choice of metaphors may have been influenced by her optical illness. THE CONCEPTUAL SYSTEM AS CONTEXT

Perhaps even more radically, we can regard certain aspects of the conceptual system as an additional factor in context. Let us see the ways in which I viewed the conceptual system as context in the previous chapters. Conceptual System: Construal Operations, Plus a System of Concepts

I described the conceptual system as consisting of two major parts: the various construal operations (in Chapter 2) and a system of concepts (in Chapter 3). I suggested, following work by Fillmore and Barsalou, that concepts (meanings) are represented as frames, or models. The frames constitute a large part of our knowledge about the world. This idea opens the way to conceiving of a shared set of frames in a language community as culture (see Chapter 5). I dubbed this conception of culture as culture1. If we view the system of concepts as culture, since culture is an aspect of context, we can take culture 1 to be context.


Metaphorical Relationships between Concepts

In a particular communicative situation, what we have in the metaphorical conceptual system can influence the choice of particular metaphors (either conceptual or linguistic). Given an intended metaphorical meaning, we can search the conventional metaphorical conceptual system for the best choice of metaphor. This happens in cases where a conventionalized metaphorical meaning is expressed via a conventional linguistic metaphor, with a matching target element activating the corresponding mapping in an existing conceptual metaphor (e.g., the meaning “supporting an argument” by means of the word defend in the ARGUMENT IS WAR conceptual metaphor). We can think of such cases conceptual context for the metaphors used. Also, some of the concepts in a system of concepts can stand in a metaphorical relationship with one another (e.g., LIFE IS A JOURNEY, ARGUMENT IS WAR) in long-term memory. Given such metaphorical concepts, their presence or absence in the metaphorical conceptual system and their various combinations with each other in acts of metaphorical conceptualization may lead to the production and comprehension of different meanings attributed to particular metaphors, as we saw in the case of the anchor example in Chapter 1. For this reason, it seems legitimate to view the metaphorical conceptual system as part of context. Concepts with Opposing Values

A system of concepts comes with semantically related concepts that can have (or can be assigned) opposing values. This aspect of the conceptual system was discussed in the chapter on humor (Chapter 8). There it was suggested that there is a conceptual pathway that leads from an initial meaning that has a value (or values) and that is expressed via a more conventional form to an expression with the same meaning but with an opposite value. The specific proposal was that linguistic humor often results from expressing symbolic unit 1 (i.e., a form-meaning pairing) that is associated with a “value” by means of another symbolic unit 2 (i.e., another form-meaning pairing) that is associated with an opposing value either metaphorically, metonymically or through blending. Since symbolic unit 2 is the opposite of symbolic unit 1, we can take symbolic unit 2 to be a part of the larger conceptual context for symbolic unit 1 in a given conceptual system. Thus, the choice of a metaphorical expression seems also to depend on what is available and accessible in the (metaphorical) conceptual system. Clearly, languages and conceptual systems might differ considerably in what they make available and accessible to speakers in a given situation. Additional Conceptual Knowledge

This is a large category that includes a variety of different kinds of information. The information is clearly based on the system of concepts in the conceptual system, but makes use of that system by means of combining elements of the

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system into larger complex, multimodal constructions. (In more traditional, amodal conceptions of the conceptual system, such constructions would probably be imagined as propositions.) Below is a list of the kinds of conceptual information that people commonly use for creating metaphors. Conceptualizers often rely on their knowledge they have about the main elements of the discourse: about the speaker, hearer, and topic, as we saw above and in Chapters 6 and 7. In creating and understanding metaphors, people also utilize what they know about the previous discourses relating to the topic of the ongoing discourse. Ideology can also be a formative factor in the use of metaphors in discourse. One’s ideology concerning major social and political issues may govern the choice of metaphors (as work by, for instance, Goatly, 2007, shows). Closely related to ideology is the knowledge people have about the dominant forms of discourse in a society. Dominant forms of discourse may acquire the status of ideologies, but this is not necessarily the case. Being aware of past events and states (i.e., items in short-term and longterm memory) shared by the conceptualizers may also lead to the emergence of specific metaphors in discourse. A special case of this involves a situation in which the speaker assumes that the hearer has a particular mental state, as was the case with the anchor example discussed in Chapter 1. Finally, people are commonly prompted to use particular metaphors (more precisely, metaphorical source domains) in real communicative situations relative to their interests and concerns about the world (see Chapter 4 and Kövecses, 2005). The various types of information listed above can be considered, at least loosely, to be a part of the conceptual system. They can all affect the use of metaphors in communicative situations through prompting, or priming, the emergence of particular metaphors. Because of this, I find it legitimate to regard these types of information as context. The term I will use for the description of this kind of context is “conceptual-cognitive context.” SUMMARY OF CONTEXTUAL FACTORS

It would seem then that the various contextual factors we have surveyed above in the chapter and in this book fall into several types. First, we have what can be called “situational context,” which includes the physical, social, and cultural situation in which metaphorical conceptualization occurs. Second, there is what I would like to call “discourse context,” that is, the discourse preceding the use of a particular metaphor in discourse. This is also commonly referred to as cotext. The discourse context also includes the discourses that precede the present discourse and that are related to the topic of the present discourse. Third, we can also isolate the “conceptual-cognitive context,” as specified in


the previous subsection. Fourth, there is the kind of context that involves the human body itself (both in its universal and person-specific aspects) in metaphorical conceptualization. This can be termed “bodily context”—to use a phrase that is in line with the preceding ones for the more customary term “embodiment.” As we will see in the next subsection, the situational, discourse, conceptual-cognitive, and bodily contexts can and should be distinguished from another set of factors that can also influence metaphor use in discourse, but in a different way. TWO KINDS OF INFLUENCE ON METAPHOR USE

In my earlier work (Kövecses, 2005) I distinguish two large sets of factors that seem to play a role in metaphor variation: those that have to do with differential experience and those that have to do with differential “cognitive styles.” The contextual factors that I summarized above in this chapter all have to do with differential experience. In Chapter 2 (and based on Kövecses, 2005), I provided a brief description of factors that concern differential cognitive styles. The factors subsumed under differential experience consist of some contentful knowledge (i.e., one that has conceptual content) that reflects (direct or indirect) experiences of the world. (By “knowledge” here I do not, of course, mean conscious knowledge.) Knowledge about the main entities of the situation, cultural and social knowledge, knowledge of history, and even knowledge of the body, and so on, reflect experiences that can trigger the use of metaphors. The factors under cognitive styles, by contrast, reflect particular ways in which experiences of the world need to be presented in the course of metaphorical meaning making. Such issues as at which level a metaphorical idea is presented (schematicity), how it should be framed, to what degree it should be conventionalized, which aspect of the body it should involve (experiential focus), and so on, are presentational in nature. The former factors respond to the question of “what” can prompt or prime the use of certain metaphors, whereas the latter to the question of “how” metaphorical conceptualization needs to be presented in a community of speakers/conceptualizers. However, it may also be possible that the content and the presentation issues become inseparable in some cases. The contextual factors that constitute differential experience characterize both the production and the comprehension of metaphors. For conceptualizers to produce and comprehend metaphors they need to be able to resort to the experiences that are utilized in the metaphors. These experiences provide the common ground that allow conceptualizers to produce and comprehend contextually induced, or generated, metaphors in discourse. In contrast, the factors listed under differential cognitive style function as constraints on the speaker-conceptualizer only, who is to follow the cognitive conventions of the speech community in presenting the metaphors based on the various kinds of

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Where Metaphors Come From contentful experiences. The hearer-comprehender is not constrained in this way

since he or she is not involved (initially or directly) in the process of metaphor presentation. This is the reason why I split up the factors that influence metaphor use in discourse into the two groups. I do not wish to suggest that by cataloging the two groups of factors I have identified all the contextual factors that influence metaphorical conceptualization in real communicative situations. There are surely additional factors that need to be taken into account for a more complete or more fully developed view of the role of context in metaphor. I did not say much in this book about such important factors as the emotional state of the speaker/hearer, the attitude of the speaker/hearer to a particular topic, or the purpose of the use of metaphor, including the purpose of being playful, funny or serious. My primary concern was with what contentful experiences (summarized as the contextual factors in this chapter) can prime and thus lead to particular metaphors with a particular conceptual content (on priming, see later section), and not with the factors that constrain or delimit their presentation in some way, as is the case with emotions, attitudes, and purposes. LOCAL AND GLOBAL CONTEXT

Throughout this work, I distinguish two types of context: local and global. The local context involves the specific knowledge conceptualizers have about some aspect of the immediate communicative situation, while the global context consists of their general knowledge concerning the nonimmediate situation that characterizes a community. Thus, whereas the local context implies specific knowledge that attaches to the conceptualizers in a specific communicative situation, the global context implies knowledge shared by an entire community of conceptualizers. The distinction corresponds, at least roughly, to Clark’s personal vs. communal common ground. Most of the contextual factors we have seen above appear to exist in both a local and a global version. However, there is no sharp dividing line between the two types of context; there is a gradient where the local turns into global. In actual communicative situations, conceptualizers can resort to both kinds of factors. In other words, the two can be freely combined in the course of metaphorical meaning making, as this was demonstrated in a number of examples (such as in the case of poetic metaphors in Chapter 7). Thus, the distinction is primarily of a theoretical nature, and it does not necessarily apply to actual cases of metaphorical meaning making. The gradient-like character of the local-global context is also characteristic of the body and the conceptual system conceived of as context. For example, we saw in Chapter 7 that a particular state of the body can produce particular metaphorical conceptualizations in specific cases, such as a poet’s or writer’s illness. Such metaphors contrast with the metaphors that evolve on the basis of

Metaphor and Context C O N

L

BA O L G

T E

X T

L

situational context

CA O L

C ON

T E X

T

discourse context

metaphor used

conceptual-cognitive context

FIGURE 10.2

bodily context

Summary of contextual factors.

the general properties of the human body (i.e., the primary metaphors). We can observe the same in the case of the distinction between the whole metaphorical conceptual system and an activated state of the system (i.e., our general metaphor knowledge in long-term memory vs. the activated local knowledge, or a particular mental state, in working memory, as discussed in connection with Ritchie’s anchor example in Chapter 1). Figure 10.2 summarizes the various kinds and types of contextual factors, as discussed so far. TIME FRAMES IN METAPHOR EMERGENCE

MacWhinney (2005) suggests that various emergent structures, including linguistic forms, emerge in various timeframes that extend from phylogenetic time scales to seconds in immediate online processing. In this emergentist mode of thinking, we can raise the issue of which time scale applies to the different contextual factors in metaphor production. At the highest level of generalization, it can be proposed that the factors in the various local (or immediate) contexts produce metaphoric forms across very short time scales, whereas metaphors based on our global knowledge (as defined in Chapter 6) require longer timeframes to emerge. The most immediate kind of knowledge in a situation can be said to lead to metaphorical forms in a matter of seconds, where a particular perception, experience or concept

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characterizing the communicative situation may immediately produce a metaphor. The global factors, on the other hand, move much slower and produce a change in metaphors over longer stretches of time. For example, a landscape where a community lives does not change very fast, so the metaphors based on the landscape will change accordingly slowly. This distinction between local (immediate) and global (nonimmediate) factors equally applies to the different types of contexts I have outlined above: situational, discourse, conceptual-cognitive, and bodily. The local contextual factors in all four types can produce, or can lead to the emergence of, metaphors in discourse across a very short time scale. The immediate factors that characterize a situation can produce metaphors quickly and the metaphors can also change quickly as the situation changes. A change in the immediate cultural situation, linguistic context, conceptual-cognitive state, or bodily condition can lead to the emergence of novel metaphors in the immediate context, and the emerging metaphors can vary in fast succession in the discourse. In the case of the different global contexts, however, the emergence is much slower due to the slower changing timeframes that apply to, for example, the symbolic cultural system, the highly conventionalized and entrenched aspects of language, the conceptual system at large, or the human body. This is not to say, however, that there are no differences in the typical time scales that characterize factors in the different types of global contexts. For example, the metaphors based on the body (i.e., correlation metaphors— see Chapter 2) change much slower than, say, the metaphors based on social factors—simply because the human body changes across the very slow phylogenetic timeframe, whereas the social system across the (relatively) much faster historical timeframe. It should also be pointed out that the various timeframes through which metaphors emerge may, and commonly do, support each other. The emergence of a particular metaphor that is based on an experience in, say, the physical context (loudness vs. whisper in the example analyzed in Chapter 4) requires the presence of a number of conceptual metaphors and metonymies in the metaphorical conceptual system. Without their presence, the metaphor could not emerge as a viable option to convey a particular meaning. Importantly, the immediacy of the sound-related experience contrasts with the much slower emergence of the conventional metaphor system in long-term memory, but the success of the emergence of the metaphor in the faster moving context (immediate physical situation) depends on the much slower-moving conceptualcognitive context. In a variety of publications, Gibbs and his colleagues (e.g., Gibbs and Cameron, 2007; Gibbs, 2011; Gibbs and Santa Cruz, 2012) adopt a dynamical systems perspective to discuss several of these issues. Significantly, they add that in the course of metaphor understanding in discourse conceptualizers form a “dynamic coupling” in a large system of interactive parts (the “contextual


factors” in my terminology) on the basis of which metaphorical interpretation emerges through various time scales. Under this view, “[m]etaphor understanding is not recovering a ‘meaning’ but a continuously unfolding temporal process of the person adapting and orienting to the world. . . .” (Gibbs and Santa Cruz, 2012: 310).

Differential Experience Primes Metaphor Use

In a large number of cases in the foregoing chapters, I argued that (the knowledge or awareness of) our experiences in the local and global contexts can prompt the use of particular metaphors—either conventional or novel ones. I have used a variety of terms for the process; I suggested that the various contextual factors can motivate, trigger, prompt, facilitate, shape, etc. the use of a metaphor in discourse. I believe the best way to characterize these mental events is to think of them as instances of “priming.” Priming is a well-studied cognitive process used extensively in psychological and psycholinguistic experiments with a sizeable literature (see, e.g., Boroditsky and Ramscar, 2002; Casasanto, 2009; Gibbs and Colston, 2012; and several other studies). Importantly, priming is based on the simulation of some experience in the situational, discourse, bodily, and conceptual-cognitive context. Experiments that make use of priming as a method in their design can range from “in vitro” to “in vivo” experiments. In the latter, people simply go through their everyday routines constituting particular contextual factors, and the researcher asks the participants questions about the way they conceptualize a particular situation, given those experiences. A large number of studies (see earlier) indicate that various bodily and discourse (semantic) experiences that function as contextual factors do shape the subjects’ metaphorical (and nonmetaphorical) conceptualizations of the situations related to those experiences. It is shared experience (the dynamically evolving common ground in a situation) that enables the production and comprehension of metaphors in discourse. To take an example of this kind of priming from the literature that is not based on conceptual metaphor theory, let us look at what Nobel Prize winner psychologist and social scientist Daniel Kahneman has to say about the importance and strength of priming in conceptualization (Kahneman, 2011). Kahneman distinguishes between two ways of thinking: System 1 and System 2. This is how he introduces the two systems: . . . I

describe mental life by the metaphor of two agents, called System 1 and System 2, which respectively produce fast and slow thinking. I speak of the features of intuitive and deliberate thought as if they were traits and dispositions of two characters in your mind. In the picture that emerges

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from recent research, the intuitive System 1 is more influential than your experience tells you, and it is the secret author of many of the choices and judgments you make. (Kahneman, 2011: 13) I would like to suggest that in many communicative situations we choose our metaphors based on the functioning of System 1, a largely unconscious and intuitive but very fast system of thought. My proposal is that the contextual factors I have dealt with in this book (and summarized in this chapter) can all prime the use of particular metaphors in context—simply because the choice of the metaphors would be coherent with the contextual factors functioning as primes. In other words, I think of the use of context-induced metaphors as a result of real-world priming without the researcher being present (unlike “in vivo” priming in experiments, where the experimenter is necessarily involved). Kahneman (2011) gives us a flavor of the strength of priming effects in metaphorical thought as well. This is what he writes concerning an experiment that involves metaphorical thought: Other experiments have confirmed Freudian insights about the role of symbols and metaphors in unconscious associations. For example, consider the ambiguous word fragments W_ _H and S_ _P. People who were recently asked to think of an action of which they were ashamed are more likely to complete those fragments as WASH and SOAP and less likely to see WISH and SOUP. Furthermore, merely thinking about stabbing a coworker in the back leaves people more inclined to buy soap, disinfectant, or detergent than batteries, juice, or candy bars. (Kahneman, 2011:56) Clearly, the experiment involves the conceptual metaphor BAD/IMMORAL IS DIRTY and some of the actions (cleaning) that are associated with this metaphor(ical source domain). In a similar fashion, my suggestion is that the various kinds of experiences in real life can prime people to choose particular metaphors (metaphorical source domains) in the course of conceptualizing target domains.

Reconceptualizing Context for Metaphor Use

The term context is typically used in the phrase “the context for/of X.” The X in our case is metaphor, and, more specifically, the use of metaphor in discourse. Given this usage, we can suggest that the context for/of metaphorical discourse is some experiential content that controls or influences the use of metaphors in discourse. This formulation gives us several ways to think about context. One is that we take all the factors outside the discourse that control the use of metaphors as context—including, significantly, the conceptual system. Another option is that we view the discourse and the conceptual system that produces it as somehow a single unit of mental activity (i.e., as producer


of discourse—discourse as product) and consider as context all the factors that control metaphor use outside the discourse and the conceptual system functioning as a unit. Third, and this is the option I would prefer, we can regard discourse and the conceptual system as forming a single unit of mental activity, but, simultaneously, we could see the conceptual system as functioning in the six roles that I outlined earlier in the discussion of the conceptual-cognitive context. In other words, the conceptual system would be both the producer of the discourse and its simultaneous shaper. On this view, then, context would be constituted by all the factors that control and shape the conceptual system as it produces metaphorical discourse, including the conceptual-cognitive factors mentioned previously.

WHAT KIND OF EXPERIENTIAL CONTENT HAS A PRIMING EFFECT?

I have listed a number of factors above that do seem to control or influence the production and comprehension of metaphors in discourse. I also suggested in the previous section that this control or influence takes the form of priming. But in each and every communicative situation we have a huge amount of experiential content (i.e., perceptual and mental—the latter corresponding to conceptual-cognitive knowledge) to deal with, and, consequently, the question arises: Which of these will prime the speaker to produce a metaphor (and the hearer to comprehend it)? To answer this question (at least in part), we can turn to and rely on Van Dijk’s (2009) idea that contextual content is represented by the conceptualizers as a “context model.” A context model is a(n idealized) cognitive model of the situation in which communication takes place that comprises a number of components, including the following: Setting Time Location Circumstances, props Happening Actors (individuals or groups) Personal: Personality, interests, appearance Social: Age, gender, “race”; social roles, social relations Mental: Knowledge, rules, opinions, intentions, goals Activity/Conduct (Van Dijk, 2009: 39)

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This general and schematic context model (that Van Dijk, 2009, elaborates on in great detail in his book) can be specified for actual cases of metaphorical conceptualization in discourse if we take into account the contextual factors that were found in the present work to be relevant for the production of metaphors in discourse. We can think of such factors as the components of a context model that respond to the following questions (I use the original designations, as given in this chapter, for the factors in italics following the questions): ¤ What do I know about the speaker, the topic, and the hearer? Knowledge about the main elements of the discourse

¤ What was said in the present discourse so far? Surrounding discourse

¤ What was said about the topic on previous occasions? Previous discourses on the same topic

¤ What are the major discourse types that dominate public discourse? Dominant forms of discourse and intertextuality

¤ What are the systems of thought that govern public discourse? Ideology underlying discourse

¤ What are the properties of the physical situation where something is conceptualized? Physical environment

¤ What are the properties of the social situation in which something is conceptualized? Social situation

¤ What are the properties of the cultural situation in which something is conceptualized? Cultural situation

¤ What has happened preceding the discourse? History

¤ What are the people participating in the discourse interested in and concerned with? Interests and concerns

¤ What are the properties of the conceptualizers’ body? The body as context


¤ What is the content of the participant’s conceptual system? The metaphorical conceptual system as context

The conceptualizers are aware of, and probably also seek out, the information that responds to these questions, and, as a result, they can form a specific context model in every communicative situation where metaphorical conceptualization occurs. Given the model, of the huge amount of perceptual and mental information (experiential content) that characterizes each communicative situation only a manageable set will become sufficiently active to prime the use of particular metaphors in the discourse. It is important to bear in mind that I have arrived at the set of potential contextual factors by empirically studying discourses that contain metaphors and the situations in which the discourses were used. In this sense, the factors form a “natural” set. The empirical results of this study indicate common tendencies in metaphorical conceptualization, but it is an open question why other kinds of information also present in the same situations do not seem to be commonly used for the same purpose. THE ROLE OF LOCAL VS. GLOBAL FACTORS IN CONTEXT MODELS

On Van Dijk’s (2009) view, context models incorporate factors, or features, of the local context only. In my representation of the general context model, however, I also included several features that derive not from the local but the global context. This is because I believe that the features of the global context are potentially also present in situations where metaphorical discourses are created. How can this dilemma be resolved? My suggestion would be that the difference between local and global features of context is a matter of degree—both in terms of content and in the degree of activation, and thus both types of factors are present in context models. As regards content, it would be difficult to say in many cases which features belong to the local context and which ones to the global context (as argued earlier). Moreover, in some situations the local features may overlap or coincide with the global ones, or can mutually reinforce each other. As regards the degree of activation, while it is safe to assume that local features are in general more active in a given situation, global features may also be somewhat active, and the difference may also be a matter of degree. It is not the case that we enter situations or move from one situation to another with a blank slate or zero-level activation of some of our knowledge about the world. Moreover, given our general conceptual system and the salience of some its parts (like being a Christian or a Muslim, for instance), our corresponding knowledge structures may be activated just as fast as are some local features. In other words, it seems justifiable to keep global features besides the local ones in our context models.

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Where Metaphors Come From WHICH PIECES OF EXPERIENTIAL CONTENT ARE ACTIVATED?

Though considerably limited (to the twelve general factors above), the available information for the conceptualizers is still quite large, and somehow a decision has to be made by them concerning which piece of perceptual or mental information they utilize for metaphor use (i.e., which piece of information is deemed usable and useful for metaphorical conceptualization in the given discourse). The only way to further constrain the available information for the purpose of metaphor creation in discourse (the contextual factors corresponding to the variety of experiential content in a situation) seems to be to take into account the particular target domain meaning the speaker-conceptualizer wishes to express in the communicative situation (that, in turn, depends on his or her communicative intentions). Given this target-domain meaning, the appropriate source-to-target mapping(s) may be activated. The specific (target-domain) meaning, let us say “lack of resolve” (as discussed in Chapter 4), may select a particular experience in the situation, such as “whisper” (and “roar”) in the example, that can convey the desired meaning. This way a particular piece and kind of information (or experiential content) and a particular context-induced metaphor (whisper) are chosen out of the huge number of available options in the situation.

CONCEPTUAL PATHWAYS

As was shown in connection with the “whisper” example in Chapter 4, the choice may be the result of the interplay of several conceptual metaphors and metonymies. The same complexity was observed in Chapter 1 in connection with the anchor metaphor, where several already existing conceptual metaphors were postulated that lead to the use of a particular metaphor. Similarly, a large number of additional examples were discussed in several chapters, especially Chapters 6, 7, and 8. Such cases indicate that the choice of a particular metaphor in discourse is often influenced by what we experience from the outside world (i.e., the situational factors), as well as from already existing elements (metaphors, metonymies, blends) in the conceptual system. These elements must be reconstructible as a conceptual pathway that can lead to the intended target-domain meaning. Without such reconstructible conceptual pathways, it would be hard to imagine in many cases how people can arrive at acceptable meanings in the production and comprehension of discourse. It may be noted that relevance theory (Sperber and Wilson, 1995, 2008) might be compatible with this model of figuring out metaphorical meaning (see Tendahl and Gibbs, 2008; Gibbs and Tendahl, 2011). Relevance theorists may claim, as indicated above, that the computation of metaphorical meaning is an inferential process in an effort to arrive at the appropriate context for the use of a particular metaphor and that the conceptual pathways made up of


entrenched metaphors and metonymies in themselves do not add up to or do not lead to the intended metaphorical meaning. This is certainly correct. But it is also true, in my view, that the relevance theory account as an inferential process cannot quite perform the job of arriving at the intended metaphorical meaning without taking into consideration the metaphors (and metonymies) already in the conceptual system or emerging in context and relying on the already existing ones, and then themselves becoming entrenched with use. For these reasons, it seems to me that relevance theory and the view of contextualized conceptual metaphors can and should work together as an account of metaphorical meaning in communicative contexts. THE EXTENT OF THE ACTIVATION OF METAPHORICAL CONCEPTS

I distinguish the degree of activation of a (part of a) concept from the extent of its activation (i.e., the issue of how “far” the activation spreads in the conceptual system). In Chapter 9, we had a sense of how extensive and elaborate the already existing metaphoric and metonymic system can be—given a single concept (such as HAPPINESS). The conceptual metaphors and metonymies that make up such systems may be at work together with our experiences from the external world, and they can jointly control the use of particular metaphors in discourse. And it is also often the case that several systems pertaining to different concepts may interact with each other and our experiences, and produce the metaphors we use in the course of metaphorical conceptualization in specific communicative situations. The discussion of the intricate metaphor and metonymy system pertaining to HAPPINESS in Chapter 9 helps us with another issue as well: whether or not such systems are fully activated in metaphor use when a particular aspect of them is activated. I suggested that the use of the metaphorical expression “the pursuit of happiness” is not likely to activate conceptual materials beyond the relevant mappings and the model that is based on those mappings, which is only a small portion of the system in which it is embedded. This is, however, just a hypothetical suggestion on my part that needs to be tested by experimental research. It would be important to know how far, given an extensive metaphor system such as that associated with happiness, the mental activation can extend in the course of the use of a particular metaphorical expression related to happiness or any other abstract target domain.

Metaphor, Cognition, and Context

Metaphors occur in discourse. If what we mean by context, in line with the definition given earlier, is what leads a conceptual system to the choice of a particular metaphorical expression in a given piece of discourse, then each

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and every metaphorical expression occurs in a different context; minimally, the change involves a difference in the preceding discourse. We saw an example for this minimal change in context (more precisely, cotext) in Chapter 6 (the case of tilt). And throughout this book, a large number of examples were considered that show how additional context types influence the use of metaphors in discourse. Does this mean that metaphor use is entirely context-dependent? A recent view of cognition and, within that, that of metaphor, that is based on the principles of dynamical systems theory asserts that it is. Given that view, cognition functions without a stable representational system of symbols and all metaphors emerge in context (i.e., there is no prestored metaphor system in long-term memory) (see, e.g., Gibbs and Cameron, 2007). While I am in agreement with Gibbs and Cameron concerning the important role of context in metaphor production (see, e.g., Kövecses, 2010b), I have made a somewhat different proposal concerning the issue in the present chapter and in various other places in this book. Specifically, I suggested that we conceive of the conventional metaphor system as a general type of context: the conceptualcognitive context. I believe this is a legitimate proposal once we think of context (including co-text) as the factors that influence a conceptual system in an act of metaphorical conceptualization in discourse. I pointed out in connection with several examples discussed previously that metaphorical conceptualization in discourse can involve and rely on not only conventional conceptual metaphors in long-term memory (such as defend from the ARGUMENT IS WAR metaphor) but also those cases where a metaphor heavily dependent on either the situational, discourse, or bodily context draws on previously existing conventional conceptual metaphors in long-term memory. Clearly, then, the issue of which conventional conceptual metaphors are available in long-term memory and how they can be put together to form meaningful conceptual pathways (for the conveyance of target-domain meanings at a particular point in discourse) is an issue relating to context. In my view, to think of conventional conceptual metaphors in long-term memory as a type of context also differs somewhat from other possible solutions to the representational issue in cognitive science in general. It could also be suggested with, for example, Murphy (1996) that we have a symbolic representational system that includes conventional (linguistic) metaphorical meanings (but not—embodied—conceptual metaphors a la Lakoff and Johnson). This would be a part of an amodal representational system. And another solution could be, as proposed by Barsalou (2008), that there is a (hybrid) cognitive system that consists of a symbolic representational system that IS modal (see Chapter 3). Of the two, the solution I offer in the book is closer to Barsalou’s suggestion: namely, that there is a modal metaphorical representational system that exists in long-term memory. This latter property makes Barsalou’s solution different from Gibbs and Cameron’s idea that there are no preexisting conceptual metaphors in long-term memory because


metaphors always emerge in context. The suggestion I made differs from both in that, while, in my view, the conventional conceptual metaphors exist in long-term memory as part of a symbolic representational system, they also function as a type of context in relation to an act of metaphorical conceptualization in discourse. Ultimately, however, I believe that the view of metaphor in context I presented in this work is entirely compatible with both Gibbs’ and Barsalou’s ideas concerning the relationship between metaphorical conceptualization and context. Although I have often found it necessary to invoke stable, conventional conceptual metaphors to explain the presence of particular metaphorical expressions in discourse, on the one hand, and although Gibbs argues persuasively that there is no need to postulate such stable conceptual patterns in the head, on the other, the real issue, as I see it, is how stable we assume conceptual metaphors to be in the conceptual system—along a gradient from zero stability to complete stability. It may be that the conceptual patterns we call conceptual metaphor vary in their degree of stability and that some of these patterns have hardly any stability, while others do have some or a great deal. If anything, this is an issue that only future empirical research can decide. Finally, and more generally, the study of metaphor in context in the book reveals the metaphorical mind as heavily situationally, discourse- (cotext-), conceptually-cognitively, and bodily dependent. This means that, in line with several recent theories of embodied or grounded cognition (see, among others, Lakoff, 1987; Wilson, 2002; Gibbs, 2006; Barsalou, 2008), the workings of the mind in the production of metaphor depend largely on the physical, social, cultural situation, the language that precedes metaphorical conceptualization in discourse (cotext), and the functioning of the human body. And, last but perhaps not least, it also depends on its own experiential content (the metaphorical conceptual-cognitive system) as context, as described in the first half of this chapter.

Where Do Metaphors Come From?

This was our original question with which I started this book. Now I hope to be able to provide an adequate and clear-cut answer to it. I argued that in actual communicative situations speakers/conceptualizers derive their metaphors from four large types of experience: the situational, discourse, conceptual-cognitive, and bodily contexts. This goes against the traditional view that most of our metaphors are simply conventionalized linguistic expressions that have a certain meaning, and we use the metaphors when we wish to express those meanings. It also goes against a commonly held view in cognitive linguistics that the metaphors we use are simply based on conceptual metaphors in our heads.

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Moreover, the view of metaphorical grounding as developed here augments and refines the more recent view in cognitive linguistics according to which metaphors are based on our bodily experience. Although this is certainly true in many cases of metaphor, the role of the body in metaphor creation can be reinterpreted, and, consequently, we can see the body as just one of the several contexts from which metaphors can emerge (the situational, discourse, and conceptual-cognitive contexts)—although perhaps the dominant or crucial one (see Lakoff and Johnson, 1999). Such a view seems to be more in line with what has been discovered about the nature of human cognition in recent years; namely, that human cognition is grounded in experience in multiple ways— embodiment in a strict sense being one of them (see Pecher and Zwaan, 2005; Gibbs, 2006; Barsalou, 2008). In light of the present work, this is because cognition, including metaphorical cognition, is grounded in not only the body, but also in the situations in which people act and lead their lives, the discourses in which they are engaged at any time in communicating and interacting with each other, and the conceptual knowledge they have accumulated about the world in the course of their experience of it.

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INDEX Aaron, 117 Abstraction, 17–18 Action, joint, 179–180 Activation, metaphorical, 197 Aitchison, 68, 114 Alverson, 4, 50 As if-connection, 44 Attardo, 132 Attention, 18–19; joint, 178–179; shared, ix–x Barcelona, 5, 20, 28–29, 44, 132, 142–143, 157 Barsalou, 31–32, 34–36, 38, 51–52, 198–200 Basis, cognitive (of humor), 135–141 Basso, 6 Benczes, 44, 67, 114 Blending, See Integration, conceptual Body, as context, 184 Boers, 27, 101–102 Bokor, 82, 89 Boroditsky, 184, 191 Bowdle, 44 Brandt, L., xi, 114 Brandt, P., xi, 114 Brdar, 20 Brdar-Szabó, 20 Brone, 132, 143 Cacciari, 39 Cameron, xi, 98, 190–191, 198 Casasanto, 34, 50, 77–79, 184, 191 Charteris-Black, xi, 13, 28, 76 Chilton, 27 Clark, 179–180 Claudi, 6 Clausner, 98 Cognition, grounding of, 199–200; and metaphor, 197–199 Colston, 184, 191 Concepts; kinds of, 37–39; properties of, 35–37; related (of emotion), 158 Conceptualization, alternative (in jokes), 148–151 Concern; differential, 101–102; personal, 107 Concerns (as contextual factor), 59, 101–102, 183 Construal operations, 17 Constructionism, social; body-based, 94; and cognitive linguistics, 80

Context (in poetry); cultural, 123–125; linguistic, 127; physical, 119–120; social, 125–126 Context model (Van Dijk), 193–195 Context models (Van Dijk), and local vs. global factors, 195–196 Context, x–xii; bodily, 186–187; conceptual-cognitive, 186–187; and conceptual metaphor theory, x–xii; definition of, 1; dis course, 186–187; global, 53, 100–102, 187–188; immediate linguistic, 110–111; and knowledge, 51–52; local, 53, 102–112, 187–188; and metaphor comprehension, 6 –11, and metaphor production, 11–13; and metaphor variation; in poetry, 117–119; reconceptualization of, 192–197; relevant, 177–178; situational, 186–187 Conventionalization, 29 Coulson, 22, 67, 69, 132, 134, 145 Creativity, metaphorical, 97–116; context-induced, 98 –99; sources of, 114–115 Croft, 98 Culture as meaning, 73–75 Deignan, xi, 44, 98, 101, 183 Demecheleer, 27, 101 Dirven, 20 Discourse; dominant forms of, 55–56, 182; main elements of, 53–54; previous, 54 –55, 181; surrounding, 54 Dobrovolskij, 98 Duranti, xi Ekman, 92 Elaboration, 28 Embodiment; 49 –50, 77–79; and metaphor, 3–6; and universality, 13–14 Emotion frames, 41–43 Emotion language, 81–87 Emotion metaphors, 157 Emotion metonymies, 157–158 Emotion, and force dynamics, 42–43 Emotionology, 81–87 Environment, physica l, 57–58, 100, 182 Experientialism vs. postmodernism, 77–79 Expressions, explaining humorous, 146

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Index

Fabiszak, 162 Factors, contextual; 53–72; combined effect of, 112–114; combined effect of (in poetry), 127–129 Fauconnier, 24–26, 31, 37, 44, 52, 66, 69, 76, 111, 117, 128, 133 Feeyaerts, 132, 143 Feldman, 22, 116 Fiction, metaphor and context in, 129 Fillmore, 36, 148, 151 Focus, experiential, 79 Frames, in jokes, 148 Framing, 28 Freeman, 120 Freund, 66 Friesen, 92 Gallese, 22 Geeraerts, 11, 79 Geertz, 74 Gentner, 21, 44 Gerrig, xi, 79, 98 Gibbs, xi, 6, 16, 34, 36, 38–39, 44, 80, 94, 178, 184, 190–191, 195–196, 198–200 Glucksberg, 21 Goatly, xi, 56, 76, 111, 182 Goodwin, xi Grady, 3, 5–6, 14, 22, 38, 114, 116, 184 Grondelaers, 11, 79 Ground, common, 179–180 Guthrie, 120–121, 130 Gyo ri, 86–87 ̋ Haiman, 40 Hampe, 39 Hansford, 89, 91 Happiness; conceptual models of, 162–165; in everyday English, 159–165; in the Bible, 169–173; in the Declaration of Independence, 165–169; metaphors of, 160–161; metonymies of, 161; related concepts of, 161–162 Harré, 80–83, 87 Heider, 92 Heine, 6 History (as contextual factor), 59, 183 Holyoak, 21 Hünnemeyer, 6 Ideology, as context, 56–57, 60– 65, 182 Integration theory, conceptual; and context, 66–70 Integration, conceptual (blending), 24–26; in jokes, 152 Interaction, of context-induced and conventional conceptual metaphors (in poetry), 126–127

Interests (as contextual factor), 59, 101–102, 183 Intersubjectivity, x Intertextuality, 55–56, 182 Is-connection, 44 Jackendoff, 117 Johnson, M., 1–5, 8, 13–14, 31, 34–35, 44, 50, 60, 76–77, 80, 94, 133, 184, 200 Jokes, 147–153 Kahneman, 191–192 Keysar, 21 King, 11–12, 27, 82, 89, 91–92 Knowledge, about the main elements of discourse; 103–106, 181; in poetry, 120–123 Koestler, 132 Koller, 111, 114 Kolodny, 100, 182 Köves, 101 Krikmann, 132, 143 Kuteva, 6 Lakoff, 1–5, 8, 13–14, 22, 24, 27–28, 31, 34–35, 38–39, 40, 42, 50–51, 60, 76–77, 80, 83, 94, 98, 116–117, 133, 138, 158, 168, 175, 182, 184, 199–200 Langacker, 17–18, 20, 31, 34, 36, 40–42, 52, 71, 76, 80, 148 Le Doux, 85 Leezenberg, xi Levenson, 12, 92 Levy, 82 Links, conceptual (in the conceptual system), 44–45 Low, xi Maalej, 5 MacArthur, xi Mairal, 45 Matsuki, 51, 88 McGarvey, 170–171 McWhinney, 189 Meaning making; ix–x; 15–30; model of, ix–xi Memory (as contextual factor), 183; differential, 101 Metaphor comprehension, 6 –11 Metaphor production, 11–13 Metaphor research, two lines of, 13–14 Metaphor theory, conceptual, ix, 1–2; criticism of conceptual metaphor theory, xi Metaphor use, influences on, 187–188 Metaphor vs. metonymy preference, 28 Metaphor, 20–24; basis of, 20–22, classification of, 3; schematization of, 22–24; universality of, 3–6 Metonymy, 19–20

Index

Mey, xi Models, cognitive (of emotion), 158–159 Motion, fictive, 18–19; 25–26 Munro, 89, 91 Murphy, 198 Musolff, xi, 76, 99 Nonspecificity of metaphor and metonymy, 45–46 Oakley, 67, 69 Operations, cogn itive, 49–50; role of figurative cognitive (in humor), 141–146 Panther, 20, 157 Parrot, 85 Pathways, conceptual, 196–197 Pecher, 200 Pendleton, 170–171 Perspective, 18–19 Piirainen, 98 Postmodernism, 77–79; and cognitive linguistics, 80; Pörings, 20 Pressure of coherence, 93 Priming; and experiential content, 193–195; metaphorical, 191–192 Processes, cognitive (in humor), 133–134 Prototype; categoriz ation, 27; in jokes, 151–152 Pun, 111–112 Quinn, 38, 83–84, 86 Radden, 19–20, 31, 44, 90, 133, 157 Rakova, 98 Ramscar, 184, 191 Raskin, 132, 135 Reason, imaginative, 76–77 Reddy, ix, 83 Relativity vs. universality, 87–93 Relevance theory, xi, 114, 178, 196–197 Rigotti, 83 Ritchie, G., 132 Ritchie, xi, 7–10, 32, 98 Rohrer, 80 Rosch, 35, 40, 51, 86, 159 Ruiz de Mendoza, 20, 44–45

Schemas, in jokes, 152–153 Schematicity of metaphor and metonymy, 45 Schematization, 17–18 Schmid, xi Selfishness, and the brain, 66 Semino, xi, 54–55, 57, 98, 111, 114, 117, 129, 181 Setting; cultural, 101; immediate cultural, 108–109; immediate physical, 102–103; immediate social, 109–110; social, 100 Shibles, 132 Sinha, x, 178 Situation; cultural, 59, 183; social 59, 182 Solomon, 89 Specificity, 28 Sperber, xi, 114, 177–178, 195–196 Steen, xi, 98 Stefanowitsch, 98, 165 Sternberg, 83 Strauss, 83–84 Styles, differential cognitive, 26–29 Sullivan, 111 Sweetser, 4 Swindlehurst, 129 System, conceptual; as context, 184–186; modal vs. amodal, 34; nature of, 39–41; organization of, 41–43; perceptual symbol (Barsalou), 31; properties of, 32–34; ty pes of, 34 Talmy, 18, 42, 157 Tendahl, 178, 195–196 Thagard, 21 Thornburg, 20 Through-connection, 44 Time frames, and metaphor emergence, 189–191 Tissari, 160, 165 Tomasello, 178 Tseng, 165 Turner, M., 3, 24–26, 66, 69, 76, 98, 117, 128, 133 Van Dijk, x–xi, 1, 176, 193–195 Verschueren, x–xi Wierzbicka, 102, 161 Wilson, D., xi, 114, 177–178, 195–196 Wilson, M., 199 Wolf, 60 Yu, N., 4–5, 11–12, 27, 51, 82, 89, 94, 99, 183

Salience, 27 Santa Cruz, 190–191 Scene, referential, x, 178–179

Zinken, xi, 98 Zwaan, 200

215

Zoltan Kovecses-Where Metaphors Come From_ Reconsidering Context in Metaphor-Oxford University Press (2015)

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